J HOUSTON

J Houston often creates images with others; their portraits of trans and nonbinary people are bright and intimate. When the pandemic made getting together with others difficult, they had time to return to a more self-reflective project. When J led Friday Free For All (Summertime’s Friday art group), they chose prompts that gave the gathering a sense of calm and introspection even as everyone shared and chatted. The prompts centered around the body, starting with blind contour self portraits and moving onto drawing favorite body parts. 

J says they developed this approach as an art teacher for youth in Brooklyn. 

“I think at that age I would've wanted new ways to look at my body, something we can all always benefit from,” says J. “I always try to start with prompts that are fun or surprising, and then I like to have alternate prompts that consider what other things people can draw if they are feeling overwhelmed or dysphoric with looking at their own body for a longer time than usual.”

During their Summertime residency J created assemblages for their series A Scale of 1 to 10, about personal experiences with the medical industry. Bandages, syringes, hair, and other objects form pastel-tinged spaces that juxtapose a sense of calm and order with painful subject matter. “It is hard for me to make that work because it's still pretty emotionally draining, but social distancing has given me so much time with myself that I got back into making images in that more solitary way,” said J. 

Creating new meaning from past experiences is important to J’s work in A Scale of 1 to 10. “One of the defining factors of my experience with the medical industry from when I was younger was what felt like an almost complete lack of agency over or understanding of my own body. Now, making work that portrays or reimagines these moments gives me an agency over my own memories of the time and how those are shared, which feels necessary for me to process.”

J also incorporates x-rays, old and new photographs, and KT tape to visualize experiences that others can’t see. 

“My illness is also often 'invisible' in that there is nerve pain without visible tissue damage, so making an invisible illness become visible is critical for how I move through the world as a chronically-ill person now.”

You can find more of J’s work here! A special thanks to Maria Ylvisaker for documenting J’s residency in such beautiful detail.