The Priest, The Knight, & The Mage
People will judge our queerness, but the trees will not.
My experience of being a queer and transgender person in my home country of the United States, as well as identifying as an environmentalist, has greatly
influenced my artistic development and interests. Through this project, I work to ask questions relating to human existence that encourage the viewer to contemplate and challenge current and intersectional issues related to the colonially imposed binary. In
this work, I allow a space for discussion on the historical implications of Catholicism and the queer community. This project is composed of natural and manufactured found objects, preserved insects, repurposed fabrics, and second-hand materials, allowing the inclusion of complex visual language. The Priest, The Knight, & The Mage embody traits of genderless existence, punk culture, anti-capitalistic themes, the innate divinity of natural spaces, and the concept of religiosity of the self. Through photographic documentation, these characters are put in poses emulating historical paintings as a form of rewriting history into a queer/genderqueer lens. I work to build bridges between history, fantasy, and activism from a transgender perspective.
This work was my 4th year final project to graduate the University of Ottawa Bachelor of Visual and Fine Arts (BFA) program. It was shown in the class of 2026's final group show, Mosaic. Construction began in September of 2025 and ended in April of 2026.
The Priest, The Knight, & The Mage gave me the honor of receiving the Ottawa Art Gallery Student of Excellence Award.
Photo Elements
The poses and settings used are replicating famous Baroque oil paintings as a way of infusing queerness (that always existed) into an art history and general historical context.
Character Lookbooks
The purpose of these lookbooks was to see the characters not in staged ways, allowing myself to dive further into the visual language and materiality of each of the garments. On the table these books were presented on, was a QR code version of each of the booklets, allowing anyone to see these images at any time in a physical and digital manner.