Lace is an organism. It crawls across and oozes from my skin. We have a relationship that is in a state of constant fluctuation between symbiotic and parasitic. These works give form to a spectrum of discomfort and acceptance in my body, as it is being overtaken by lace. I have struggled with the femininity that is often projected onto me as an AFAB person since adolescence.

 

Each work juxtaposes  delicacy and strength, hard and soft, beauty and violence. I am drawn to the intricacy of handmade lace, as well as the domestic labor of crochet and embroidery. Lace and embroidery are decorative in nature; breasts are secondary sex characteristics that feel purely decorative on my body. I have no desire or need to use them for their biological function. Most days I wish I didn’t have them at all because their presence on my body makes me feel marked as a woman, an identity I do not comfortably embrace. 

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The viewer should feel uncomfortable when looking at many of these works. Each work is alluring, but also painful. There is a softness in the subtle textures and curvature of the body, but a violence in the way the lace disrupts my skin. This dissonance visualizes how I experience femininity. It is a part of myself I no longer want to fully reject, but the associations and assumptions that come with presenting more femme make me uncomfortable. This body of work explores my attempts at coming to terms with existing in a female body and the complex relationship I have with my own femininity as a genderqueer person.