Notes from the Studio: 13/05/2026

Image: Hans Van Hans, Self-Portrait (Successive States), 2024-25 (detail of interaction). Latex, expanding foam, and cement. Dimensions variable.

I. The Core Philosophy: From "Looking" to "Relating"

​My practice is built on the belief that identity is not a static image to be “read” through traditional portraiture or iconography. Instead, I understand identity as something performed, felt, and negotiated through social interaction. I am not interested in creating a likeness; I am interested in creating a relationship.

By shifting the focus from visual representation to sculptural behaviour, I invite viewers to experience identity as a living negotiation. The work does not simply sit there; it responds, warms up, softens, and refuses, much like a person does.

​II. Material Partnership: The Responsive Body

​I view my materials as collaborators rather than things to dominate or control. I lean into the inherent “personalities” of specific substances to mirror the complexities of bodily experience and relation.

Latex & Inflatables: These materials represent the unstable and non-fixed nature of the self. They hold air, stretch, deflate, and change form over time, mirroring the ways bodies shift and adapt.

Memory Foam & Minky Fabric: In works like Soft-Entry, these materials act as a sensory bridge. They create a tactile experience that moves from something visually uncomfortable or grotesque toward softness, comfort, and safety through touch.

Toys & Everyday Objects: Using pool noodles, beach balls, or organza allows me to ground complex ideas in familiar forms, making the work physically and emotionally approachable.

​III. The Visual Language of Transition

​My work often functions as a direct translation of internal and physical states into material form.

Case Study: Cop-a-Feel (Twelve Months of Becoming), 2024–25

This piece uses a gradient of inflation and colour to map the passage of time and the physical shifts of transition.

The movement from full inflation to deflation reflects my experience of breast tissue changing through testosterone and binding. By using twelve beach balls, I turn time into physical volume and emotional weight into something viewers can move around, encounter, and physically navigate.

​IV. The "Trojan Horse": Humour and Play as Entry Points

​I use humour and play to lower the viewer’s defences. If a work feels familiar or makes someone laugh, they are more likely to linger, touch, and engage.

Mediators: Objects such as beach balls or self-righting sculptures serve as psychological mediators. As familiar objects, they create a safe middle ground through which people can approach more complex or intimate experiences.

The Subtle Pun: Whether through the title (like Cop-a-Feel) or the suggestion of a nipple on a beach ball, humour becomes a soft entry point into themes of dysphoria, surgery, gender, and visibility. People often laugh before they fully approach the work, and that moment of recognition becomes part of the encounter itself.

​V. Layering in my Practice: How it Works Together

​My work operates through overlapping layers of theory, memory, material, and action.

The Theoretical Layer: Influenced by writers such as David Getsy and Gayle Salamon, I begin with abstraction, the felt body, and forms of embodiment that resist fixed visual definition.

The Behavioural Layer: I design works to behave — to hug back, self-right, soften, or trigger movement in others. These behavioural qualities reflect ways of relating that unfold slowly over time.

The Unfixed Layer: As a transgender artist, I aim to disrupt expected bodily iconographies. By focusing on abstract bodily forms, openings, or unstable objects, I create spaces that are intensely personal while remaining open enough for others to enter through their own experiences.

​Summary Statement

​My practice invites an experience of identity not as fixed or visually legible, but as relational, unstable, and discovered through embodied interaction. Through responsive materials and playful sensory design, I create works that shift attention away from static images and toward touch, behaviour and exchange. Across my practice, image does not predict understanding instability becomes a source of play and understanding, and meaning develops gradually through the relationship between participant and object rather than at first glance.