“DYIPNIQUE”
2022
Acrylic on Canvas
72” x 48”
The piece highlights The Philippine Jeepney, which originates from refashioned military vehicles left behind by US soldiers after World War II. This piece is a representation of resourcefulness and resilience of the Filipino people who have turned what is essentially junk into a new form of mass transit still prevalent in today’s society. This speaks also to the transgender experience as these are the same traits often develop within the trans experience. Painted on top of it is muse and trans woman Aisia Castelano representing the overall artistic message of woman empowerment, feminism and the need for it to be intersectional and inclusive of transwomen in order to see the way in which other forms of inequality often operate together to pit all sexes against each other. This piece reminds the viewer that ultimately fighting for the trans movement is actually fighting for the rights for self-determination of all bodies and identities. Standing up against this, the artist is challenging the authority of the state and the government to categorize and control all bodies. The piece is conceptualized to highlight the erasure of the trans and gender non-conforming existence in history as a product of colonization and imperialism.
DYIPNIQUE (2022)
Digital Art Film (in collaboration with Zel Downey and Array Bercov)
The triptych starts with ‘Dyipnique’ as it represents home for the artist. The Jeepney in it is inspired by the same one the artist had parked in her childhood home in the Philippines which her younger transgender sister and muse of the piece Aisia still resides in. It cuts to ‘The Domiverse’ which represents how the artist has traveled away from home to the United States in order to access and begin her medical transition. Following the finish of the transformation is an imagined reconnection with her sister who has also achieved transitioning in the Philippines through Dominique’s help and they both meet in the same place for the first time. This is an artistic piece exploring the feeling of the artist’s longing for reconnection through her work as they have not seen each other for 8 years now. The triptych is finished with ‘Adarnique’, which represents a challenge and a threat to not only the reconnection but also being queer of color in this cisheteropatricarchal world.
