As a queer person of color, I have come to understand that conventional aesthetic values have colonized our appreciation of our bodies. We are peddled thousands of images of anatomical perfection, and only those with a certain phenotype are candidates for self-actualization. The scrutinization of the self is unbiased and nondiscriminatory.

When I first started shooting, I used the camera to reconcile the image of myself with the image that appeared on the screen. Once I started to deconstruct the way I saw myself, I began to use photography as a tool for collecting likenesses. My experience with a distorted body image inspired me to incorporate deliberate distortions, alluding to the infinite permutations of what a body can be in an attempt to refute those exclusive, often unattainable conventions. It is simultaneously a fetishization of form and a celebration of otherness.