newspaper, liquid watercolor, acrylic paint, paint markers, magazine letters; 14×11”
“I am non-binary, I always have been, and I always will be. Growing up in a society that enforces gender roles, even subconsciously, was extremely damaging. With age, I’ve had to heal and grow past the roles that were enforced on me. Around 12, I started to express myself and my gender, or lack thereof, through art. This self expression has helped me improve my abilities at art. I have always thought of gender as an arbitrary system, and this belief has helped me cope with my own otherness. I wanted to show my own pain and discomfort with systematic gender roles via a physical wound. So I decided to paint a scraped knee. Scraped knees aren’t a shocking or horrifying injury, but all people with one knows how much it hurts. I thought this was fitting because those who aren’t hurt by systematic gender roles, don’t realize how much it hurts.”
ARTIST BIO: Lu Gee is a Grade 11 student at Mariemont High School.