Art has always been a way for me to hide. As a transgender kid in the closet, my pursuit to feel normal in my body and in my gender expression had to be done in secret. By drawing as much as I could, my natural gravitation towards all things masculine could be embraced in private, where I was not afraid of judgement or shame. At the same time that I was coming out of the closet in college, I was showing my art to people for the first time. Living through both of these intense life changes at the same time made me feel extremely shy and unconfident. As a result, I became highly uncomfortable sharing my work. I was hiding in the closet and only allowing myself out through my private art practice, so sharing my art was me exposing my greatest secret. As a way to mask my own discomfort and soften the delivery of my true self to viewers, I started making work with a lot more silly characters and world building. I was curating an environment in which I could feel more comfortable during this vulnerable period in my life, by subverting the monster. I make large maximalist installations of bold, hyper-artificial colors and patterns with a dark ground and characters that creates an environment where the monsters and all of their fantasy is the norm, and the viewer with their human body stuck in reality is the “other”. Despite their differences, viewers are invited into my work by the friendly faces of large creatures, all done non-threateningly in flat 2-D. Done in a vibrant rainbow of bold colors and always with a hard edge or outline. The creatures are part of a collective, like a family, and together create their own world. This transportation to another world is a form of comfort for me, brought about through avoidance and distraction. But it is also a method of play and uninhibited joy.