dumonchelledraws:

Antigen

Some personal work relating to the sensation of gender dysphoria. 

I’ve been going through a kind of ‘waking up’ period in my life as of late, and it’s heavily influenced my work. Because of it I’ve been exploring a lot of stylistic changes lately, most of them have failed, but so far this string is going to really interesting places. I’ve always been a fan of patterns, but truthfully until I started work on Marian I never really tried incorporating them into my work. Even then I only started with art-nouveau and nature/organic inspired designs, which is kind of natural for me. I’ve been trying to find a balance, between the heaviness of my pencil rendering and the simplicity of flat shapes, colors, and patterns.

When I first became interested in gender themes it largely stemmed from a piece of history I had never known about, but when I finally learned of it in college, it blew my mind. Learning about the Two-Spirit tradition was kind of the starting point of what has become a huge part of my work. Considering this and how much it impacted my work, I started experimenting with different kinds of patterns and shapes inspired by those I saw in American Indian and Indigenous artwork, and what happened when I brought the two styles together. This piece was actually preceded by another I can’t post just yet, but of the two I think this is the most successful. Hopefully this will take me to some new places, it certainly feels more right and close to the balance I’m looking for. And I am really loving the graphite powder.