My transgender artworks

 I've had a number of comments and other communications over the last week relating to art. 

I used to do quite a lot of painting, drawing and some illustrating of books. A few items of mine have been published and I have taken part in various exhibitions, open days and so on. But I'm not going to 'out' myself by referring to those because I used my male name. Instead I'm going to recall the time when I started to do art in my female name and to sign off items with my female initials, SVR.

I'd had one art studio in South West London near an office where I worked. It was almost a break-out space for me, somewhere I could go and have my lunch or go to after work and wait for the evening rush hour to quieten down. Sometimes I painted pictures, too! I managed to sell quite a number of them and got various commissions. Not enough to earn a living - you'll never earn a living from creative stuff - but it was pleasant to find that the public liked my work.

I changed careers and then got another studio, a much bigger one nearer the centre with fantastic views across London. That one I shared with two very good and serious professional artists. They accepted I was trans without quibble. The art world is very accepting and alternative; after all, every artist is expressing themselves in their own way.

There I started a series of portraits of celebrities and then of trans women. My style for these was partly inspired by Julian Opie who has a very simple, almost cartoonish, yet unbelievably expressive portrait style. His website is here. I wanted more detail in my portraits, but the same sort of plain coloured background. 

Here is a portrait in this style of model/actress Elizabeth Hurley on an oval canvas which I did in 2008. 

 

I wondered if there was any scope for portraits of trans women which could be displayed at trans events like Sparkle or as part of a general art exhibition. I was a bit disappointed by the response of trans organisations to that idea, to be honest. But I asked for volunteers for this experiment anyway. My first was Andrea.

 

Then I did various other girls and the self-portrait you've seen. In the end, two of my portraits were selected for the Diffractions exhibition in Southwark, just south of the city centre, in the autumn of 2012. One was the selfie, the other was this portrait of Maddie.

I think Maddie was the best one in this style. Well, Maddie liked it enough to buy it off me. Andrea above had a distressing time with her picture. Not because it wasn't a good likeness but because when I emailed her a photo of it, the email distorted the portrait at her end to make the oval seem round. This made her seem incredibly fat. I'm glad I managed to sort that one out, but this is one of the many reasons I don't trust electronics to do the right thing.

Anyway, there were some amazing artists at the Diffractions exhibition - I am not in their league at all - but it was good to be on the list, and as Sue.

I described the show in my post On public view. Here is a photo of me and my guests for the private view, including Petra (far left) who is a good artist herself and Ange (far right) who is a professional photographer (and who had taken the pictures of me at the Great Drag Race two years before this). 

 

After that, the increasing demands of my new business made me lay down my brushes. You have to prioritise what brings the money in, after all, and, as I said, creative stuff, no matter how popular, just doesn't pay.

Now I have more time again, I'm thinking of maybe reviving that old dream of a trans woman portrait show. We've had plenty of trans photo exhibitions, including touring shows like the one on trans workers by my friend Stella, and more historic ones like Lisetta Carmi's 1960s trans ghetto photos, but trans women in traditional media - like oil on canvas - seem like a novelty.

I have a huge box of acrylic paints at the moment but for portraits you really need oils, in my view. Others disagree, but oil is infinitely workable, more vibrant, more alive, whereas acrylics often result in a flatter, duller finish and have to be worked with fast as they dry very quickly. We also don't know how long they last in historic terms. Rubens' natural oils are still vibrant after 400 years; petroleum substances seem to break down after a few decades. Not that I flatter myself I'm anything like Rubens! I shall therefore get some quality oils and start with a new self-portrait. 

We do have a specialist art shop near me with a really beautiful window display of all their overpriced goodies but, when you go inside, the shop is bloody chaos ... I mean, the shop is arranged in an 'artistic' manner by a truly 'creative' mind. I think I'll get some quality oils the next time I'm in a big city. If you really want old-style paint-making, you can't beat Cornelissen's in London who have been supplying artists' materials for 200+ years and who will still sell you traditional ingredients that are illegal now - including things like arsenic or urine - provided you agree to sign the Poisons Register!

This Pride Month has made me feel I need to do more to promote trans rights. Trans art seems like a good way to engage the public as the politicians are a bit mad and unhelpful these days. If I feel up to the task of reviving this TGirl portrait show idea, I may ask for more volunteers. I may also take commissions if you'd like your own pretty picture done. I usually work from photos as people find it hard to sit still for hours these days. Mona Lisa looks good because she didn't have a smartphone to fiddle with down at Leo's studio. Let's see how we go first.

 

By way of postscript, these two Julian Opie lenticular print bookmarks are two of my favourite things. One is of people walking and the other is of women dancing, and both series move as the light catches the marker in different ways. As with all photos on Blogger, just click to enlarge.

 

Have a good weekend. Don't melt. 

Sue x