digital inkjet print; 19×13″

“Often the decision to transition requires big steps. Sometimes these steps are made quietly and sometimes they are subtle, more akin to stretching one’s body. This photo depicts the act of stretching through the skin or a permeable membrane. Much in the same way skin stretches when a person grows, when a person makes the decision to live in their desired gender, they will need to stretch their boundaries to fit in a new space. The old body or mindset is no longer suitable or large enough.”

ARTIST BIO: J.C. Neihardt is a trans-masculine nonbinary artist based out of North Texas. Their work focuses upon their personal experience as a nonbinary person, and it is presented through the lens of abjection and horror. J.C. centers a great deal of their work around meat as an analogy to the body or self, specifically around the idea of passing for an intended gender and how that is relative to the process USDA presents for meat productions. The inability to pass makes one visually inedible to normative society. J.C. is a graduate student at Texas Woman’s University and will graduate in the spring of 2022.