Sebastian Rowlands

Description

Oil painting on linen board.

51 x 40.5cm.

This self-portrait sought to capture the moment I started to come to see my chest as part of myself, a year after having top surgery.

There are many selfies of trans people taken waking up ecstatic after their gender affirming surgery is complete. But healing from my surgery was far more mental than physical. A process of gradual adjustment to a sudden change that was wanted, but nevertheless a shock to my system.

It was a calling into a body that I had kept a mile away until that point. My brain took months to knit together that the mental image of myself and my body now aligned. This is not a self-portrait of top surgery scars. It’s a self-portrait marking the specific moment where I finally saw myself, embodied.