I often use my practice to illustrate the experience I have as a person, and specifically as a queer person. These portraits map my experience through surgery, emotional turmoil, and my past. The Birthmarks and Scars piece follows my journey after top surgery. My body looked a lot different, and while I was happy with the results, it was also foreign. So, like a outside observing scientist, I mapped the markings of my body, recording those I was "born" with and those that I have gained. And by doing so I reacquainted myself with my body, while emphasizing distance that had been created. The three literal portraits of my face represent my current experience as a queer person moving throughout the world. Mirroring the Seeing/Hearing/Speaking No Evil, these portraits represent the silencing of queer people, the blind trust we must put in strangers to simply not attack us, and the sometimes overwhelming pain from hearing of the insensitivity and violence forced on us everyday. The dress and the still life represent my childhood, and adolescence. Specifically, my relationship with femininity, and how I was treated because of my perceived femininity and my own personal interaction with it as a young genderqueer person.