Artist Statement
Images of the LGBT community are scarce. This community is underrepresented in the media and is removed from the idea of normality. I want to contribute to the normalization and representation of the LGBT community. I, myself, am bisexual. Growing up, I was told that bisexual people were just confused. They were just horny. They were slutty. They were living in sin and betraying the Lord. The devil was inside of them. This idea was reinforced in my mind by the media, the church, and my small-town Texas community. If you were known to be bisexual or gay, you were tortured in the gym locker room. They assumed you were going to be looking at them sexually or try to come on to them every time they changed their shirt. In reality, people are just people. If you’re a gay woman, you’re not attracted to every woman who walks the Earth, just as a straight woman is not attracted to every man on Earth. It’s again this idea of a lack of normality in the LGBT community.
In my series, “Perception,” I explore the idea of assumptions, particularly related to the LGBT community. The series begins with portraits of the two girls and evolves into pictures of the two of them together. The idea is to show the shift in perception. At first, the series appears to be just a photoshoot of two friends. Then, photos are shown of the girls holding a gay pride flag. Following these photos are more pictures of the girls together. Now, most people will immediately assume that this is a gay pride photoshoot and that these two girls are a couple. Depending on the viewer, other assumptions will be made about the girls and the meaning of the photographs. No matter what the viewer assumes, the reality is that these two girls are just roommates. They are both bisexual, but they had not so much as touched each other until this very photoshoot. They are friends and nothing more. The real meaning behind this series is to make the viewer dig into their own perceptions of the LGBT community and encourage the normalization of this group of people.
The photos were created and produced digitally. The shift from vertical to horizontal signifies the shift in perception that comes with the addition of the gay pride flag. The only difference between a gay person and a straight person is their sexual orientation, and it should be treated as such. Before we can do this, though, we must first acknowledge our own wrongful perceptions and stereotypes.
