eddie gesso – Artist Statement

Combining formal, minimal, and abstract concerns, my work employs simplified forms and reductive color to explore issues of transgender embodiment and gender-identity formation. Often culminating in site-specific and site-responsive installations, this work attempts to perform narratives related to societal notions of gender construction through the lens of personal experience, and contemporary queer and transgender theory.

In the Attempt to Complicate series, layers of transparent color refuse to coalesce into a surface color that is precisely pink, blue, or yellow. The sides reveal the artistic process in drips of candy-colored pinks, blues, and yellows. Engaging the codes of gender and sexual subjectivity—pink for girls, blue for boys, and yellow for babies of either sex—these attempts complicate and resist the normalization of this cultural narrative. Through the process of layers of pink, covered by blue, covered by yellow a new color and thus gender is formed.1

1Latimer, T. 2009, “Queer Abstraction/Queer Narration”, College Art Association – 97th Annual Conference, Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles Convention Center, pp. 3-5.

Resume

Education

2008 BFA, with high distinction, emphasis in Visual and Critical Studies, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA

1991 Associate of Arts Degree, Seattle Central Community College, Seattle, WA

Exhibitions

Solo

• 2008 Between Bodies, BFA Exhibition Thesis, Tecoah Bruce Gallery, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA
• 2005 Hir/Hirs, (Site-specific installation) California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA
• 2005 Binding (Video installation) California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA

Group

• 2008 Present Perfect, collaboration with Analisa Goodin, The Spare Room Project, San Francisco, CA
• 2008 Queerity, Million Fishes Gallery, San Francisco, CA
• 2008 Making Room for Wonder, SOMArts, San Francisco, CA
• 2008 trans-masculine self-representation: images of identity, Azariah's Cafe, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH (catalogue)
• 2008 Baccalaureate Exhibition, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA
• 2008 8th Annual Monster Drawing Rally, Southern Exposure, The Verde Club, San Francisco, CA
• 2007 Borders, Fresh Meat in the Gallery IV, ODC Theatre, San Francisco, CA
• 2007 Drawing in the Margins, Swarm Gallery, Oakland, CA
• 2007 Senior Moment, Oliver Arts Center, California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA
• 2007 Centennial All-College Honors and Scholarship Awards Exhibition, paper “Pronouns Not of My Own Making: Language, Gender
  Misrecognition, and Racism in the Academy,” Oliver Arts Center, California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA
• 2006 Best of Junior Review, Oliver Arts Center, Californian College of the Arts, Oakland, CA
• 2006 Fresh Meat 2005 in the Gallery III, ODC Theatre Gallery, San Francisco, CA
• 2006 New Work by Stacy Nathaniel Jackson and eddie gesso, Fresh Meat Productions, Femina Potens Gallery, San Francisco, CA
• 2006 Unexpected Developments, PLAySPACE Gallery, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA
• 2005 Fresh Meat 2005 in the Gallery II, San Francisco LGBT Community Center, San Francisco, CA
• 2004 First-year Student Group Exhibit, CCA, Oakland, CA
• 2003 Infra / Intra-structure, Seattle LGBT Community Center Art Gallery, Seattle, WA
  

Exhibitions Curated

• 2008 Present Perfect, collaboration with Analisa Goodin, The Spare Room Project, San Francisco, CA
• 2008 Changing Landscapes, Artists Maxx Sizeler and Jackadandy, Fresh Meat Productions, Femina Potens Gallery, San Francisco, CA, March 1-30, 2008
• 2002 Three Women, Lesbian Resource Center Art Gallery, Seattle,

Exhibitions Juried

• 2008 Defying Gravities, Fresh Meat in the Gallery VI, San Francisco LGBT Community Center, San Francisco, CA
• 2007 Borders, Fresh Meat in the Gallery IV: Fourth Annual Transgender Visual Art Exhibition, ODC Theatre Gallery, San Francisco, CA
• 2006 Fresh Meat in the Gallery III: Third Annual Transgender Visual Art Exhibition, ODC Theatre Gallery, San Francisco, CA
• 2003 Reparation, artist Robert Hall, Seattle LGBT Community Center Art Gallery, March
• 2003 Infra/Intra-Structure, artists Thu Nguyen and eddie gesso, Seattle LGBT Community Center Art Gallery, May 2003
• 2002 It’s a …?, artists Miles Conrad, Cory Peek, Manuel Tapia, and Brian Watson, Seattle LGBT Community Center Art Gallery, Seattle, WA, June
• 2002 Happiness, artists Kristine Evans and Sabina Noelle Walker, Seattle LGBT Community Center Art Gallery, August/September
• 2002 Graphic, artists Patrick Baroch and Christopher Rollins, Seattle LGBT Community Center Art Gallery, November/December
  

Awards

• 2007 Malcolm Wood Writing Award, Undergraduate Award for Academic Paper “Pronouns Not of My Own Making: Language, Gender Misrecognition, and Racism in the Academy,” California College of the Art, Oakland, CA

Bibliography

• 2006 Pacific Noise, Interview, Episode 8, March 3, 2006

Artist Lectures

• 2008 Artist Lecture, “Queer Art” Undergraduate Seminar Professor Tina Takemoto, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA

Conferences

• 2006 Queer ID Academic and Art Conference, Paper, “Pronouns Not of My Own Making: Language, Gender Misrecognition, and Racism in the Academy,” Boise, ID
• FTM 2006 – A Gender Odyssey, Multi-media installation with video, book, and sound, Richard Hugo House, Seattle, WA
• 2005 Film/Video Screenings, GenderQueer/QueerGenders: Conversations among Artists, Activists and Academics, UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA
• 2004 A Gender Odyssey, Conference Exhibition, Seattle, WA

Professional Experience

• Present Grant Research Assistant, artist Taraneh Hemami, San Francisco, CA
• 2008 Grant Application Processing Assistant, Center for Cultural Innovation, San Francisco, CA, March 2008
• 2007-2008 Intern, Alternative Exposure Grant Program, 8th Annual Monster Drawing Rally, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA
• 2005-2007 National Queer Arts Festival Intern, Queer Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA
  Media Center Technician, California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA
• 2005 Teaching Assistant, 2D Visual Dynamics, Assoc. Professor Liz Ledger, California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA
• 2002 Gallery Curator, Lesbian Resource Center, Seattle, WA

Professional Affiliations

• 2005- Curatorial Committee Member, Fresh Meat in the Gallery, San Present Francisco, CA
• 2002-03 Art Gallery Committee Member, Seattle LGBT Community Center Art Gallery, Seattle, WA
• 1996-98 Member/Studio Artist, Project 416/Wonderful World of Art, Seattle, WA