22” by 28”, oil on wood.
36” by 48”, oil on wood.
In Dante’s Inferno, you will find witches, astrologers, soothsayers, and fortune tellers in the eighth circle of hell, meant for those guilty of fraud. The punishment for their sin is poetic: since they tried to look too far ahead into the future using twisted magic, they are bound to endlessly walk forward with their heads twisted backwards and their tears running down their backs.
Fraud is considered an extremely dangerous sin in the Inferno; it undermines trust in, and the capacity to, love others. The crime of the soothsayers is especially deemed so severe since they deprive people of choice by making it seem as if the future is a foregone conclusion.
Within the context of the church, I see soothsayers as truth-tellers (rather than fortune tellers, which sounds derogatory to me). They don’t necessarily see into the future, but they absolutely see through the manipulations and the systems put in place to oppress. That’s why their sin is considered so profoundly dangerous: instead of depriving people of choice, by exposing the truth soothsayers suggest that god—and by extension the hegemony of the church and state—does not have absolute power over our lives and our futures. Whether we choose to listen and act is up to us.
Soothsayer is a portrait of performer and artist Linda LaBeija. When I started this painting the world felt tremendously different. When I was conceiving the painting, I was inspired by Linda’s work, like “Urgency”:
“There is a submergence
That seeks to escape my soul
From a paradox of a population
consistently peeking in on heavens of gold
A people wishing for peace and control reaching heaven
Thinking they were going to hell”
Months later, and Soothsayer feels like it fits right into this current moment, as we see a wave of uprisings sparked by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and Nina Pop. Video after video, account after account, we see the violence that the police inflict every day on Black people. The police are trying to show us over and over that they have absolute power.
They do not.
Despite a pandemic that threatened to destroy our social bonds, people are showing up, through protests, mutual aid networks, jail support, bail out funds, and more. People are responding to the overwhelming violence by caring for each other. This care reminds me of Mariame Kaba’s idea of “hope is a discipline”. Waking up every morning and choosing to work towards change.
For the most marginalized, the apocalypse wasn’t a far away future but a traumatic past and an existing present. Unlike the sinners in the Inferno, in Soothsayer Linda is not going anywhere. Her pose is relaxed. No tears are running down her back or blurring her sight.
Soothsayer was originally meant to be a challenge to the viewer. Now, I see it as an invitation: “welcome to the movement”. But it is also a warning: don’t kneel with the cops. The demands are for ABOLITION of the police, military, and prisons. Don’t let liberals co-opt this movement and distract you into reforms.
As Angela Y. Davis put it, “freedom is a constant struggle”. it is not one moment or one person, it is a movement.
36”, oil on wood.
18” x 18” x 18”. oil on wood.
24” by 36”, oil on wood.
Ganymede, in an act of defiance, in an act of despair. 24” by 36”, oil on wood.
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"And Dardanos' child, Ganymede, prince of Phrygia, the dear delight of Zeus' bed, dipped deep the bowl of gold, filling the cups for wine-offerings.”
-Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis 1051 ff (trans. Vellacott) (Greek tragedy C5th B.C.) (edited down).
Ganymede, in Greek mythology, was a young prince of Troy. Zeus fell in love with him and sent, or took the form of, an eagle to bring him up to mount Olympus, where Ganymede would be the cupbearer serving the gods the ambrosia that gave them their immortality. He was also deemed as Zeus’ lover, which made his wife Hera furious. Eventually, Zeus placed Ganymede in the stars as the constellation Aquarius.
Some sources explain Zeus placing Ganymede in the stars as a way to protect him from the wrath of Hera. Some as an act of love. But one intriguing source claims something slightly more interesting. In this version, Ganymede saw his family and friends slain in the Trojan war, became angry and decided to spill the ambrosia. Zeus, usually an angry god, at first wants to punish the young mortal, but is held back by his love, sees that he has been unkind to the boy, and instead places him in the stars as the constellation Aquarius.
Artists have depicted the story of Ganymede in different forms, however many show Ganymede either befriending the eagle, or they tell the story of the rapture, of the young man, boy, or toddler Ganymede being kidnapped by an eagle. These depictions show the inevitability of the rape and of power. Zeus has gotten his way in whichever form he needed to take with other “lovers” and Ganymede is no different (other than that he is Zeus’ only homosexual “lover”). Consent is irrelevant against the gods.
But thinking about that act of spilling the ambrosia made me think of a different side to Ganymede, and perhaps shifting our gaze to a moment of reckoning. I wanted to see Ganymede having agency. Instead of rape, he is doing what is within his power to protect his loved ones. It’s a futile action—the powers he faces as a mortal in defying the gods are negligible—but he still is willing to accept what punishment he would face. He acts in defiance because he is empathetic and compassionate, not because he knows he’ll win. Acting in defiance only in the face of certain victory would mean to never challenge power, ever.
My intent with this painting was to reflect on my own place in life, my own complacency, fear, and hopelessness. I wanted to examine power relations in my own interpersonal relationships while seeing how bigger, systemic powers are manifesting themselves in those. Whether it is about my romantic or friendship relationships; my positionality in desirability politics/gender/race/class; and my relationship with myself, needing to diminish myself, hate myself.
What I mainly hope to explore is the messiness of power that manifested itself in this story. There are no perfect victims; Ganymede holds power too. But there’s something more interesting depicting him—and by seeing myself as him—taking up space, claiming my body, and taking action. It is riddled with both desperately trying to show myself compassion, while also expressing a deep disgust I have for myself: in this act of defiance, Ganymede is still not strong enough to speak for himself—he is still enjoying the youth, the safety, the immortality, the beauty that is afforded to him. Instead, he is a useless martyr. Acting on behalf of other people, his friends and family and city.
[cw: suicidal ideation]
At a time when I feel constantly in flight or fight, easily triggered, there’s something quite fitting that we can’t see where Ganymede stands: he has no solid footing, feeling “grounded” is elusive at best. This is probably the most intense, most honest painting I’ve ever worked on. At times, I felt like this painting is my suicide note. Suicidal ideation isn’t new to me, and my intention with this painting is not *against* those thoughts necessarily and it’s not about showing strength in the face of what feels like insurmountable trauma. Rather it’s simply performing that small, but ever so big gesture of spilling the nectar: I’m changing, growing, challenging, and disrupting my own patterns not because it’s easy or that I know I’m going to “be better”. It’s a practice of hope.
20”. Oil on wood.
in a recent interview in vulture, fiona apple said this about one of her songs: “This is also about two specific people. I don’t think they will even be aware of it. This stuff comes out of feeling myself suppressing the urge to reach out to them and be friends. A lot of times when I write songs, it’s because I can’t get through to the person in real life…. If I try to get in touch with somebody and talk through things, and they won’t talk to me, then, sorry, I got to write a song. When I say, “I don’t think that they’ll be aware of it,” that’s me not getting my hopes up. I don’t expect anything to come from it. I have to express it somehow. I don’t think they’ll hear it, but I have to say it anyway. The tree has to fall, even if no one’s around.”
trauma does this thing to you where it keeps you stuck in the past. it is excruciating and draining to live in a body that is almost never calm and a mind that isn’t grounded and fully present. life passes you by while you’re trying to barely hold on. with relational trauma, tiny moments can rekindle emotional flashbacks and become huge and overwhelming.
mistakes in my parents’ house were not allowed. one mistake with my father, he’d explode, and i find out that every single thing i’ve been doing in the past days/weeks/months has been terrible. there was never a response that felt appropriate: it’s either that he’s calm and upbeat or he’s furious and either raging at me or silencing me out. there was no way to fix it; i’d just have to wait it out until he’d calm down, which could take months. it taught me pretty well to feel like whatever mistake i make and if anyone is upset with me, my entire existence is worthless.
a conversation in december affirmed some of my worst core beliefs about myself: that i’m too needy and overbearing, that i’m unsafe and unwanted, and most of all that i am unstable and inherently dangerous. despite all the learning and hard work towards healing, i’ve been stuck in this moment, in this sinking feeling, a panic that happens when i feel that i’ve made a mistake or that i’m in danger. it’s both frantic and lethargic. my heart starts racing but my body feels limp and lacking any energy to move. breathing becomes hard. there’s no room for curiosity.
i’ve found it hard through the years to hold on to friendships. i feel easily forgettable and discarded. i worry so much about upsetting anyone that i lose sight of my own needs and boundaries, and i am always on the lookout for any signs of abandonment. usually i find it impossible to express my inner world through my paintings. but this conversation and broken relationship happened, and i finally knew how i can “show” that sinking feeling. but, i’ve felt these feelings before. i wanted to make this painting about this person, but also not about them.
rarely has a painting been so emotional and intense for me; if i’m honest it is probably the most emotional painting i’ve ever worked on. there’s hurt and pain but also so much love in it, and the feeling that i’ve grown and changed so much since, and now i can name it, express it, and hopefully heal a little more.
16” by 20”, oil on wood.