visual art

Sassafras is an international award winning visual artist whose work has been shown as part of conferences and galleries across the United States as well as the United Kingdom. The following pieces are a selection of that work. Hir mediums are primarily photography with some mixed media sculpture.

In 2009 Sassafras was honored as the winner of the Birmingham SHOUT Festival’s OUT Open competition for visual art for hir piece ‘San Francisco Find.’  The SHOUT festival was taking Queer to the streets of Birmingham with work from artists around the world. The festival projected the art onto prominent city buildings .

“San Francisco Find” (right) is an unaltered photograph, which gives an intimate look at the intersections of gender and class in queer American culture. This sign was found blowing around on a warm summer afternoon at Harvey Milk Plaza in San Francisco’s Castro District. Surrounded by extreme wealth and privilege of the gay community, and under a rainbow flag, this sign requires everyone to think about the ways in which the most vulnerable are most often victimized and made invisible by members of our own community.

This piece has also been on display at the  Southern Comfort conference in 2007, and  Trans/Giving in 2008.

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“injecting femme”

Two weeks before hir 19th birthday Sassafras began weekly injecting 0.5 ML of Testosterone or “T” as we all called it into my right thigh above the tattoo of an anchor. Two years later ze stopped injecting. Ze came out as a queer femme.

‘Injecting Femme’ has been part of gallery showings at the Genderqueer/Queergenders, gallery at University California Santa Barbara February 11-13 2005,  The Fresh Meat in the Gallery, San Francisco June 2-July 6 2007, Southern Comfort 2007, and  Trans/Giving in 2008.

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sculpture displayed at In Other Words Feminist Books and Resources in Portland Oregon, as well as at the 2009 SHOUT festival.

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“Off Leash”

Displayed in The 100th Monkey Studio’s “The Human/Animal Bond” gallery showing in Portland Oregon as a Benefit for Dove Lewis November-December 2007, and The Magdelyn Theater in 2004.

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“Bathroom Avenger”

Part of the Genderqueer/Queergenders, gallery at University California Santa Barbara February 11-13 2005, Southern Comfort 2007

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“Devotion”

selected to be part of the 2008 GLAAD Out Auction in NYC!