s/He Handsome
A Cultural Critique of Figurative Beauty and Gender Identity
s/He Handsome, is a mixed media series that takes an intersectional (Crenshaw, 1989) approach to decolonizing figurative beauty by centering the images of persons assigned female at birth that identify as masculine of center. Masculine of center (MoC) is a term, coined by B. Cole of the Brown Boi Project, that recognizes the breadth and depth of identity for lesbian/queer/ womyn who tilt toward the masculine side of the gender scale and includes a wide range of identities such as butch, stud, aggressive/AG, dom, macha, tomboi, trans.
This series can best be described as a cultural critique that interrogates the definitions of masculinity as exclusively the domain of persons assigned male at birth. The figures in this body of work are saying, “I’m not trying to be noticed, but I refuse to be ignored.” The images are a conversation between external recognition and the agency of self-identification. Through Black liberation and queer aesthetic practices these folks of color reimagining masculinity in their own image.
