I'm built just like him - Gouache, collage, and image transfer on watercolor paper - 22x30 - 2024

The selected works–created at my Summer Arts Residency at Smush Gallery in Jersey City and continued from my home studio–are about my family's history, depicting portraits of my relatives and notable landmarks from old-school Jersey City. What began as a commentary on how things have changed in a rapidly-gentrifying section of neighborhoods transformed into an exploration on what happens when young and old meet. Browsing through photo albums made me realize how identical I looked to my mother when I was a kid and how my great-grandfather has a chest and belly exactly like mine without a shirt on. Mostly, though, it would leave me wondering whether the conservative Greek Orthodox background of my deceased and elderly relatives would impact their perspective of me now as a transgender, queer man. With my grandfather’s recent suffering with the early stages of dementia, it is more important than ever for me to preserve these memories by honoring the ways of the past in a way that is authentically myself.