This painting was commissioned by Brighton’s LGBT+ Community Centre in September 2022. The centre wanted a painting to express trans joy and the experience of gender euphoria, as one of a series of permanent art works to hang on the walls of the newly remodelled community cafe.

I developed the work as part of my BA Fine Art course at Art Academy London, being tasked with engaging a live commission. It depicts my friend Hazel, a trans woman based in Brighton, who provides the face to express the feeling of euphoria.

The painting focuses on trans joy as a site of power. In living for ourselves and strengthening our networks as trans and non binary people, being visible to one another as happy and thriving people can be revolutionary. It is a means for us to claim our agency.

Gender euphoria can also take on a specific flavour for those of us who are autistic, non binary – where a deep affinity for nature can blend into our sensations of gender euphoria. I wanted to communicate this synaesthesia and interlacing of identity with natural systems clearly. The branching pattern references dendritic forms found repeatedly in natural systems (in rivers, blood vessels, trees, nerve cells).

Encaustic wax textures reference the Brighton location and the sea as a source of release for so many of us as trans people.

Digital prints of this painting are available in my shop.