For this project, I worked with a transgender model called Immani Da Silva, who is currently undergoing the transition from male to female. I tried to explore as well as contrast clinical, biological, more easily discernable attributes of what is considered to be female with a more organic, personal conception. Each piece also encompasses a more culturally aesthetic idea of what is feminine which Immani herself has observed (as an individual who is influenced by the wider culture) and to some extent embodies and adheres to. It’s a representation of the tension between the biological, cultural and the personal or perhaps the relationship between the three depending on the perspective. I was also quite interested in the theological idea of the self as a perfectible whole entity, one that can easily be captured by fulfilling certain criteria and the almost impossibility of this task. This is demonstrated in the image in which she is portrayed with angel wings in which I’m trying to play upon her androgyny, the angel wings are a reference to accounts of angels as androgynous beings. Immani is not easily categorized and, yet, is in some sense in the process of being so. Not only occuring during the transitional process, but also by she, herself and her perception of her true identity, and who she needs to be in order to fulfill this. In each piece she is depicted as “multiple selves”, as if transcending a singular perspective, ultimately inhabiting a self-composed of diverse identities.
