I firmly believe that there is no singular, correct understanding of an artwork or an exhibition, and that each viewer has unique and valid responses to these works. Just as Gender Euphoria: Contemporary Art Beyond the Binary displays pluralistic and diverse genderqueer identities and expressions, it also elicits varied and personal interpretations. The descriptions and analyses below are evoked for me by this collection of artworks, and give some insight into my subjective role as curator.

Many of the artists featured in Gender Euphoria use depictions of the human body in their work to explore trans identities. RaiNE Brabender (they/them) uses their photographic self-portraits to embrace fatness, Blackness, and queerness, powerfully asserting that the people who inhabit marginalized bodies are beautiful, important, and strong. The domestic interior settings of SmoothBoulderz and GlowandStretch recall that many queer and trans folks use the contemporary selfie as an everyday practice of self portraiture, whether or not they see it as art. The circulation of these images is life-affirming. Ebenezer Galluzzo (he/him) uses a hybridizing, additive process to create his mixed-media photographs, and his artistic process helps him find pride and self-acceptance in his trans identity. Works like Blossoming and Sphere from Heaven defy the gender binary by mixing gendered signifiers. Arthur Burns’ (he/him) whimsical illustrations are a joyful celebration of transmasculine bodies, whose top surgery scars and prickly, bushy body hair represent one of the many experiences of transmasculinity. Forest Svendgard-Lang’s (they/them and he/him) T Thursdays and It’s Tits reflect their personal experiences with testosterone and top surgery. Forest invites viewers to engage with his experience with medical transition through a coloring book. Liberty Morey’s (they/them and he/him) collages, drawings, and zines make bodies abstract and ambiguous to the point of genderlessness, dissassociating sex from gender. Whether these artists turn their gaze on their own bodies or represent other trans people, they depict and explore bodies by using affirming representation, playing with gender signifiers, and abstracting to the point of ambiguity. 

Some of the featured artists celebrate gender non-conformity in their work by depicting nude trans bodies and drawing the robust connection between sexuality and gender euphoria. Zeph Fishlyn’s (they/them) Anthropomopolyology hankies and zine are a playful retort to the homophobic idea that queer sexuality is “unnatural.” Ebenezer’s poetic images frequently include strap-ons. Ingemar Hagen-Keith’s (s[he]) sculpture A Third Leg removes the phallus from an abstract body. RaiNE’s Ham.and.a.Half depicts empowerment in sexual subjecthood. These works challenge the taboo that surrounds trans nudity and sexuality, and reveal how nudity and sexuality are often reserved in mainstream representation for dominant bodies: straight, cisgender, able-bodied, thin, and white. 

Several featured artists affirm the importance and vitality of queer and trans friendship, love and community for creating gender euphoria. Pace Taylor’s (they/them) drawings gorgeously depict intimacy between queer folks. Ursa Nuffer-Rodriguez (they/them and elle) works with their genderqueer photographic subjects to capture friendship and kinship. Zeph’s social practice project Sum of its Parts brings people together to collectively author queer portraits and envision future genders, using analog strategies that evoke long-distance, pre-internet connections forged by rural queer folks. The queer kinship depicted by these artists is essential to the survival and euphoria of genderqueer individuals and communities. 

History, assemblage, liminality, and worldmaking emerge as related themes in Gender Euphoria. History is told, re-told, and queered by these artists. Rya Hueston’s (she/her) Self Portrait does not depict her body, but her portrait is just as intimate and self-reflective. Rya assembles archives of personal and indigenous histories in each of her works. Ebenezer’s Divine recalls religious symbolism and art historical composition, making his trans body the revered subject. Lo Moran’s (they/them) Conversion Therapy: Queering the World morphs the painful history of religious conversion therapy into a queer-affirming experience and workshop that advances the “gay agenda.” Hailey Tayathy’s (they/them) Indigiqueer drag performance recounts a queered telling of a Quileute legend. Some of the included works propose alternative gendered landscapes and worlds: Liberty’s True Neutral and In the Flesh zines depict the dissolving of binary gender and transformation of flesh; Ingemar’s Denim Hides is a genre-defying object that explores entropy, transformation, and assemblage. These works assert that there is euphoria in breaking down and destroying systems of knowledge, being, and order as we know them, taking the pieces that serve us, and creating new worlds.

My work and thinking is perpetually inspired by José Esteban Muñoz, whose writing has inspired many of us who work in queer visual cultures. As you view and reflect on Gender Euphoria, you may find yourself considering Muñoz’s statement about queer futurity from his book Cruising Utopia: “We must dream and enact new and better pleasures, other ways of being in the world, and ultimately new worlds. Queerness is a longing that propels us onward, beyond romances of the negative and toiling in the present. Queerness is that thing that lets us feel that this world is not enough, and indeed something is missing.” Gender Euphoria offers glimpses of euphoric worlds.

Imperial Sovereign Rose Court of Oregon