There Were Always Those Before Us

20” x 30”
Framed acrylic on illustration board, kiln formed glass, red thread


This was the beginning of my painting work which delved into me embracing art about queerness. I was inspired by feminine symbols in Chinese culture and phenonemons of nature like gynandgomorphism. Gynandgomorphism is having both male and female characteristics. This often is seen in insects, but there have been cases in crustaseans, and birds. Secondly I included different species of sea slugs (nudibranches) which are hermaphrodites. I wanted to include nature which challenged the heternormative, straight ideology which we see upheld by the majority of human societies because it is a way to say that nothing has ever been clear black and white. I included a younger me being comforted by the womanly figure because it was through research and discovery that I didn’t feel so alone anymore. Queerness has always existed throughout human civilizations and we have many stories, figureheads, activists, people, etc to look up to.