Natasha Munro, 'Hurn'
Photo Credit
Self-Care for Aliens is a meeting ground between both artists expressing the relationship of the radical queer spirit finding a home in an organic vessel. To be trans for the artists is embracing mutations in the face of social alienation. At the forefront of the exhibition is cherishing this life practice that leads to fuller lives and shows different representations of queer subculture in Aotearoa.
The series involves a continuation of their shared practices of fantastical self-portraits made from digital collages. Now pushed into the physical space with various experimental screen prints utilising mostly makeup. Colourful fabrics are inked with eyeshadow, lipsticks and various tools that shape the self beyond harmful social traditions. They are interested in curating the fantastical with harsh reality, as that is how both artists find themselves in the day-to-day. The essence of the works is gleefully transforming through distortive creations and being purposefully excessive in that approach. The scale, material use and screen placements are finding beauty in chaos and practising safe yet liberatory queer release.
Underlying the series is a response to both Natasha and Ezra’s queer upbringing in Ōtepoti as the trans experience was confronted with open bigotry and general unease of being queer in public. Like as the project has unfolded though, violence can never demolish queer communities as we find kinship in the fullness of our social contortions. They hope to see the trans or even the alternative viewer in actualisation and find space within the messy crafts you see before you.
Self-Care for Aliens is a meeting ground between both artists expressing the relationship of the radical queer spirit finding a home in an organic vessel. To be trans for the artists is embracing mutations in the face of social alienation. At the forefront of the exhibition is cherishing this life practice that leads to fuller lives and shows different representations of queer subculture in Aotearoa.
The series involves a continuation of their shared practices of fantastical self-portraits made from digital collages. Now pushed into the physical space with various experimental screen prints utilising mostly makeup. Colourful fabrics are inked with eyeshadow, lipsticks and various tools that shape the self beyond harmful social traditions. They are interested in curating the fantastical with harsh reality, as that is how both artists find themselves in the day-to-day. The essence of the works is gleefully transforming through distortive creations and being purposefully excessive in that approach. The scale, material use and screen placements are finding beauty in chaos and practising safe yet liberatory queer release.
Underlying the series is a response to both Natasha and Ezra’s queer upbringing in Ōtepoti as the trans experience was confronted with open bigotry and general unease of being queer in public. Like as the project has unfolded though, violence can never demolish queer communities as we find kinship in the fullness of our social contortions. They hope to see the trans or even the alternative viewer in actualisation and find space within the messy crafts you see before you.
