Transition

Acrylic on Canvas (2018-2019) & Oil + Cold Wax on Canvas (2020)

In response to a leaked memo from the Trump Administration concerning the distinction between sex and gender, I was driven to create a painting, titled Realignment, that illustrated my feelings of gender dysphoria. I styled this piece to be reminiscent of Spanish and Latinx artists like Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, and José Clemente Orozco - artists that my Peruvian godmother used to teach me about when I was a child. After that painting, I decided to interview other transgender people at my local LGBT center to create the paintings (#2-#5) Emancipation, Domination, Circumscription, and Feminization, in a similar style inspired by their experiences.

The final painting, Transition, was made a year later to return to my ideas of gender dysphoria and to further explore of my trans experience. While making painitngs #1-#5 in this series, I was pre HRT in high school where I was the only out trans person. Due to this, I was hypervigilant in proving to the people around me that my identity was real and valid. To do so, I depicted myself and others suffering from gender dysphoria as it was the medical diagnosis used to perscribe trans people hormones and a way to give my experience legitimacy in the eyes of cis people. However, after going to college and starting testostrone, my identity became less oriented around pain and instead became focused on growth. Transition is a 5ftx5ft painting in coldwax and oil paint that illustrates my weekly ritual of taking my T shot.

Leon Calzone

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