Grids: #BathroomArtOnly

I recently wrote about my new project, #BathroomArtOnly. These are images of recent paintings.

I got obsessed with grids and still am. I think they still relate to my concept around gender and the fight for basic public bathroom rights, as well as the bigger concept of getting people to understand gender fluidity and then connect it to gender non conformity and other types of gender identity.

The two approaches I’ve chose are the direct approach and the indirect approach. the medium matches the approach. Using mixed media and comics mostly about inanimate objects talking about gender and other topics lends itself to the direct in your face approach.

The grids and abstraction as well as specific lines/the grid/boundaries lends itself to the indirect approach.

Off the grid can mean, “Unrecorded, untraceable through normal means.” but also “not quite on track” and “hiding”. The phrase originally meant “not connected to utility-provided electricity, water, sewer, etc, having to deal with your own waste and sewage”. Usually people living simply away from urban areas nowadays make the choice to live “off the grid”; however as a metaphor, this connects to the idea of being forced off the grid, literally, not permitted in a specific restroom which is a source of living in most places, and public bathrooms are provided to not force us to live off the grid.

“On the grid” turns out to mean “the state of being under the influence of the energy/alcoholic drink” and also means living the opposite of off the grid.

I will look up “grid” in another post.

I started these just enjoying paint and didn’t put lines in until I started making drawings with lines.

So I see these as indirect images to promote my project about gender and gender diversity. More on that later—

Leaving you, if you got down here, with a thought experiment: what gender is this grid? Are these grids free of gender or could each grid have its own gender. Do colors and materials evoke gender? What gender is glitter? Blue? Silver? Bright colors? Drips of paint?

Going on a long vacation, not metaphorically. I’m actually going a bit off the grid, not away from bathrooms and electricity but in the woods! Happy rest of August, unless I post something during vacation. Please share your thoughts in comments!