Disability is intrinsic to my artistic practice. When I was a child, I was assessed as having a fine motor disability along with learning disabilities. I was told I would never be able to create art. At that moment, I became determined to create art, to illustrate that I could do something I was told would be impossible for me.

Since that time, I have become physically disabled with a spine injury, and my art began more and more to revolve around the body, identity, and the way that my body didn’t fit into a normalized world. I eventually discovered DisArts, the art of disability and became part of a tradition of disabled artists creating art that stems from our disabled bodies and our oppressed status in an ableist world.

Disability has shaped the way that I create art, requiring me to modify my style and teach myself how to create art differently from the way most people are taught art. I leaned that instead of struggling against my body to create art, I would invite my body into the creative process.

This is some of the art that has come from the intersection of my disabled body and the various media around me.

Resistance: DisArts - Exhibit Catalogue

Flight

2016, Mixed media on Wood

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Poptabs for Wheelchairs

2018, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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Part of our History: Pookie the Monkey Girl

2018, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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Heartache

2019, Mixed media acrylic on canvas with leather, paper, and cardboard

Heartache was created as a project in reclaiming scars and exploring the beauty of a scarred body. It was created after a friend had heart surgery and was initially horrified by the scars, which she initially felt were a reminder of the pain her body went through. These scars transformed for her into a map of her experiences and she began to reclaim the beauty of her scars and the story of resilience they represented on her body.

In this painting, I use leather string to represent the stitching on her body after her cardiac surgery and a heart is symbolically framed beside the stitching representing both the physical damage to her heart as well as the caring she shows to others.

Although this is a single figure art piece, I wanted to evoke a universal nature to the experiences of cardiac patients, so I painted constellations in her eyes and across the background of this painting.

The body of this figure is covered with trees and plants as a reminder that although medical practices can be invasive and disruptive, all bodies are natural even when they have been altered by technology.

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Our Voices Have Power

2021, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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Angie

2021, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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New Beginnings

2021, Acrylic on Canvas

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Curviture

2017, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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Erasure

2017, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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Scanned

2019, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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Medicated

2015, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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Toxic Medicine

2019, Mixed media acrylic on canvas with plastic needles, a plastic doll, fabric, and melted wax

A few years ago, I went to the Peterborough Regional Health Centre because I had broken my finger. The doctor, like so many others, was uncomfortable that I came in with my male partner. For most of the visit, I was treated like I was medication-seeking and was only believed when I finally got frustrated and told them that I did not want medication since I am used to dealing with pain because of my disability and only wanted to make sure that my finger would heal correctly. Since they didn’t believe that I had a broken finger, I showed them that it now bent sideways. Finally, they ordered x-rays and were able to splint my finger. They also ordered blood tests. This seemed unusual to me, especially since they wouldn’t tell me what the blood tests were for.

A few weeks later, I visited my family doctor. She asked me why I had an HIV test at the hospital. This was a shock to me since I did not consent to an HIV test and nothing about a broken finger should suggest that there is a relationship to HIV. My family doctor called the doctor who had ordered the test in the hospital and asked why they did an HIV test without my consent. The doctor told her “we always do an HIV test in certain circumstances”. My family doctor asked if they always do HIV tests for patients with broken fingers and the ER doctor said “no. Only in certain circumstances.”, so my family doctor asked “do you mean because Derek is gay and was there with their husband?” The ER doctor replied “yes. It is for our safety.”

I painted Toxic Medicine as a response to this event and to bring attention to this illegal and discriminatory practice by the PRHC. Queer people are often treated as toxic by medical practitioners, so much so that Canada Blood Services prevents queer people from donating blood. We are assumed to all have HIV, yet even though there are effective HIV screens for blood and even though nonqueer people can also have HIV, the queer population is targeted and treated as though our blood and bodies are toxic.

Toxic Medicine highlights that repeated feeling of being treated as a toxic body, featuring a figure stripped down at the centre of the canvas and surrounded by needles that have “Poison” written on them and red wax dripping from them symbolizing blood.

Medical encounters are often challenging for queer people and this painting embodies the humiliation, shame, and fear of a toxic medical encounter.

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Behind the Facade

2019, Mixed media acrylic on canvas with stones, glass beads, tin pop can tabs, tin, plastic, and yarn

As someone who has a spinal injury that causes chronic pain, I regularly find I have to mask or hide that pain, performing able-bodiedness as much as I am able to in order to engage with an able-bodied world. This painting tears away the facade, showing the complexity of pain under the skin. It shows a spine and back sparkling with difference. I have used pop can tabs to make up the spine because in high school I participated in a campaign to collect pop cab tabs to contribute to purchasing wheelchairs for wheelchair users. The stones and glass beads are meant to signify that although my body is shaped by pain, it also contains a certain beauty and history.

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Diagnostic

2019, Acrylic and Ink on Canvas, 16" x 20"

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Labelled

2021, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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Medical Gaze

2021, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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Votives

2019, Mixed media acrylic on wood with paper, tin, and transparencies

This piece in inspired by offerings that were left to the Greek god Asclepios, the god of healing. Worshippers would leave offerings in the shape of parts of their bodies as requests to heal that part. These offerings were generally made from clay. They stand as a direction to the god, an offering, and a testimony that the healing helped.

This mixed media piece is meant to illustrate the history of medical ideas and point out that ideas of medicine are always changing and not objective truths. It is meant to underline that healing is complex and healing practices diverse.

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Pained

2016, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas, 16" x 20"

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Time is Running Out

2015, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas, 16" x 20"

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Kissed at Mid-Day

2019, Mixed media acrylic on wood with paper and ceramic tile

Kissed at Mid-Day reflects on the practice of holding “kiss ins” by queer activists under the Queer Nationalism movement. This movement sought to identify queer people as a nation because of our distinct history, culture, and identity. They coined the phrase “We're here. We're queer. Get used to it". Queer Nation reflected on the idea that we are often rejected from our own nations and treated as others, not benefitting from the protections and sense of home that straight citizens benefit from.

Queer Nation would hold “kiss ins” meant to disrupt heteronormative space while illustrating that although straight public displays of affection (PDA) are accepted, queer PDA is often treated with disgust, shaming, hiding, and acts of violence.

Kissed at Mid-Day brings attention to the political power of a queer kiss by showing two figures leaning in to kiss each other. The image is bisected by a ceramic rectangle with figures across it of different body types illustrating the need for bodily diversity and pointing out the multiplicity of ways of being in society.

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Ephemera

2019, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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Ascendant

2021, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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Crossroads

2021, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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The Mystical Edge

2021, Acrylic and Paper on Canvas

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Sacred

2021, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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Pillars of Life

2021, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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Connected

2021, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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Natural

2021, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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Together Alone

2019, Mixed media acrylic on canvas with tin, yarn, paper, ribbon, beads, glass, and cardboard

This piece explores the shame that is still experienced by so many queer members of the community (closeted or out) because society still views queer relationships as something to be ashamed of. The two central figures in this painting are dejected and sad with body postures denoting their sorrow. One figure looks on from the right, separate but also appearing within a large face, illustrating the way that others watch and pick up on shame.

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Interlinked

2019, Acrylic on Canvas

Interlinked is another work exploring relationships and community. This painting looks at how we form communities of others and come together. It explores ideas of found family and the way that we create bonds with others.

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Community Erasure

2019, Acrylic and Paper on Canvas

Community Erasure is meant to evoke the eraser and underrepresented history of marginalized people. Often we grow up without knowing the history of our communities and we feel like shadows on our landscape - temporary and invisible. The shadowy figures across this brightly painted abstract represent that lost history and lost community, but also represent the possibilities of creating a new community. The background of this work evokes the splashing of the tides against the shore and the changeability that is implied by these smashing waves.

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Simple

2024, Acrylic on Canvas

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Stigma

2024, Acrylic on Canvas, 2024, 16" x 20"

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Mentorship

2024, Acrylic on Canvas, 2024, 16" x 20"

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Urban Hope

2019, Acrylic and Paper on Canvas

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Lunar Nights

2019, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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At Odds With the City

2019, Acrylic and Paper on Canvas

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Vibrations

2019, Acrylic and Paper on Canvas

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Icons of Change

2019, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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The Wonder of Bodies

2019, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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Beneath the Layers of Masks

2021, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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Dancing in the Stream

2019, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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Speaking Hands

2019, Acrylic and Paper on Canvas

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Bodies in Transition

2019, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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Signed

2019, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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2021, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

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Out in the Crowd

2019, Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas

Out In The Crowd explores the way that queer couples are hypervisible in heterosexist society, and the way that queer couples have to face more risk in order to show affection.

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