In transitioning from a woman to a man, I am letting myself be more personally exposed in my art work. Whereas my psychological truth was veiled in abstract narratives, I feel liberated and can portray my life and feelings in figurative paintings. My Evening Gardens series speaks to something hidden that is now emerging. The barriers of my stripe have become surmountable fences around an urban space illuminated by the glow of a fire. In early figurative work, my streets were empty, but now the space is inhabited. A figure that is realized yet illusive is allowed inside the enclosure, and the night setting and smoke create a sense of mystery. The smoke anoints the painting mystically making it holy, the figure becoming bathed in it like water of a baptism.
Everything in my life changed, as I have a new wardrobe, new home, new name, identity and yet it hasn’t. In the beginning, it was a whirlwind much in the way a painting starts for me. It was novel, exciting, thought provoking. All remnants of who I was are gone. Testosterone I likened to becoming a werewolf with sudden eruption of hair all over my body and subtle muscle facial, voice, and hair changes. The artist in me is guiding me through my stages of transition, learning and adapting with every step of the process. I can see that the first painting in the series has a Munch-like anxiety, and as I continued, I got caught up in the sense of things in flux. Hoping to convey a transitory state, I emphasize the movement of the figure, the smoke, the fire, the time of day and year, the deep darks and bright highlights. The series morphed into my celebration of the life we move through.