Perceived

Medium Description

Acrylic paint and ink on canvas

Artist Description

Perceived was directly inspired and informed by my own personal experiences as a transgender, mixed race, neurodivergent person. Within the various intersections of my existence, the concept of perception and being perceived by others has been an oftentimes unyielding anxiety and focal point of nearly all my interactions with the outside world. The knowledge that the various divergencies in my mental processes obviously forces a lens of perception to be considered as the very way I take in my surroundings and experiences is inherently different from neurotypical minded people, while also still being unique even from other neurodivergent individuals as well. Being a mixed AAPI person in the deep south has, over the few decades of my existence, led to seemingly countless iterations of the classic game of “What Are You (Because I Can Tell Something Isn’t Quite White)?” where the fodder of this apparently fully acceptable source of entertainment was my very identity, reducing my existence to a categorizing that somehow managed to feel much less like trying to get to know me as a person, and much more like calling out breeds at a dog show; someone must have told them there was a prize for guessing my pedigree (or lack thereof) accurately. As for how my existence as a transgender person affects my experience with being perceived by others, it has been a constantly shapeshifting weight, bouncing from wanting so desperately to be perceived in the way that I see myself, to dreading being perceived as trans at all for fear of the safety of myself and my loved ones, and somehow managing to hit almost every anxiety, fear, hope, and expectation found within, between, and without those opposites. 

Through this art piece, I wanted to evoke that feeling of eyes being on you, of feeling silently judged and sized up, of constantly not knowing if it is reckless or brave to try to shake off what others might think, because opinions and words are weaponized daily, certainly, but other things exist purely as weapons and seem to be used more and more readily in lieu of stating or defending an opinion (though in an ideal world, people would remember the long-forgotten option of: minding your own business). While the backdrop of eyes scattered throughout in varying shapes, sizes, and hues set the stage for that feeling of unease, it is the large central eye itself that acts as the visualization of what those compounding anxieties and fears can amalgamate themselves into. While the central eye image may be perceived as one entity, a closer look reveals that its entire being is made up of repetitions upon repetitions of the word ‘eyes’, which has been hand written, painted, and stamped in varying shades, sizes, and angles to create the appearance of a large central eye staring back into the viewer. The phrases “Can you feel them on you?” and “the eyes” also recur throughout the piece, while a much larger and striking text states “I CAN FEEL THEM ON ME;” the upper and lower edges seem to be slowly filling with a oil-like substance that blots out the eyes entirely as it slowly tries to consume the entire image.