Senior Thesis: Identity, Mental Health, and Gender
What does it mean to know yourself? As someone who has navigated the complexities of identity, mental health, gender, and sexuality, I've found that the answer is never clear-cut. My work explores these intersections through a raw, multifaceted lens—blending film, painting, drawing, and printmaking to provoke more profound thought and invite the viewer into self-discovery. I am drawn to spaces where identities become fluid and multifarious, societal labels clash with personal experience, and vulnerability becomes strength.
Growing up, I struggled with the pressures of gender expectations and mental health struggles that pushed me to question what I had been taught to believe about myself. In my art, I document these struggles––a space for reflecting on identity as a personal journey and social construct. My self-portraits explore the tension between masculinity and femininity: a complexity in embracing both sides of myself within a world that most often demands rigidity. Through my paintings and digital works, I turn the gaze back on those accustomed to categorizing and labeling, urging the viewer to confront their assumptions.
In my thesis work, I merge personal reflection with broader cultural commentary, using art to capture the moments when I've felt both fragmented and whole. My film is a documentary on depersonalization, both the self-altering with time and the conversation between past and present, myself. In this respect, I will merge archival footage, interviews with family and friends, and interior personal monologues to create visual metaphors to describe the complexity of mental health and identity. These moments—raw, vulnerable, and honest—invite the audience into the emotional landscape often hidden from view, challenging them to question what it means to hold onto your sense of self.
The prints I make—posed males in sensual, objectified poses—pushed traditional gender conventions full-on, countering one of society's most age-old gendered assumptions: that vulnerability is a female state. My female representations of dominant, traditional males pose a challenge, in similar terms, one of society's most deep-rooted assumptions: that one can ever only ever be feminine and feminine and conduct oneself in a submissive manner. My works unveil a new possibility for males and females: an enriched, multidimensional awareness of identity.
My works shatter a haven for observers to challenge one's assumptions and become empowered to reinterpret terms with and through which one's been constructed. I aspire for my work to make a lasting impact, not just as a series of images but as an encouragement to delve deeper into who we are and who we can become.
The Woman Who Grew Up as a Boy
My mother would ask me,
“What do
you
want to be when you grow up?”
She’d tell me,
“You can do whatever you want;
just ensure you’re happy.”
She let me choose what I wore, not intervening
when I wore my favorite yellow shorts
one too many times. She didn’t bat an eye
when I told her I didn’t like wearing skirts or
when I played with cars and dinosaurs
instead of dolls.
She loved me no matter who I was. Even
if in pre-school, I told my art teacher,
“I liked all the colors except pink.”
She even loved me when I
got defensive over a woman demanding I
close my legs, even though I
wore my favorite yellow shorts.
She let me cry
and held me. She’d
take the skin off her back if I
asked her for it, giving me her spine as a tip.
She gave me everything and more, while he
gave me nothing. No wonder I chase after something I
want, but once I have it, I get bored and ask for more.
Once in high school, I wore
baggy shirts walked with power
in my stance, with my back curled inward
to hide the breast that sat on my chest.
In college, I puff up my chest and show off my breast
because the beauty of me as a woman can finally impress
my ego of being powerful and domineering.
What does that make about me
as a woman? As a woman
who grew up as a boy.
You bought me a tennis racket
and told me we’d play together.
Those rackets laid behind my bookshelf, collecting dust
before my mom threw them away.
You’d take me to the park
and sat on a bench reading a book, studying
the words on the page, oblivious to
my tears as I clenched my right elbow. The raised
scar remains, fading away
like your fatherly responsibilities.
I could have played
baseball with you if you
really wanted.
But did you
really
want it?
Aren’t you happy?
You wanted
a boy, after all.
Thesis on pause!
I'll be returning to this thesis soon. Currently busy with graduating and moving back home. I won't abandon this, I promise <3