Give Up the Ghost

Give Up the Ghost is a series of six paintings created in Fall 2018 and Spring 2019. The paintings are an introspective examination of transgender subjectivity in visual narrative. In this paper, I separate the personal and research through first and third person, similarly to how I separate imagery and mark making in my paintings. The paper is broken up into a description of the project, the history and theory which informs the work, and why painting is used to describe bodies and spaces. Give Up the Ghost refers to giving up social expectations as determined by gender. The paintings hint at the unexamined experiences one encounters through a transgender perspective. My aim is to show the interconnections between an experience and the social which allows experiences to transpire. Using impasto and layered paint, I slowly build bodies and spaces, to show a deeper subjectivity in how bodies and spaces relate with one another