Malocclusion

Abstract

This project is a deep dive into the combined dental, orthodontic and surgical procedures that formed me and influenced my social and sexual development during the first two decades of my life. I provide a combination of anecdotes and clinical instructions/details to enliven the trauma of an adolescence steeped in corrective measures. These sensations provide context for the images I create in my art practice. I link themes from my procedures to the physical processes I use in drawing, painting and printmaking. Acknowledging these embodied memories has led me venture further, but not entirely, towards a space of abstraction. In this embrace I am combining sensations of the human body without depicting its literal form. With this work I am contemplating a future for queer figuration that rejects the real and embraces the hybrid, the weird and the artificial.