A Search for the Femme

I now recognise and identify as non–binary gender, assigned male at birth (amab).  

Over the years I have often felt like a fellow traveller or ally. I’m an artist. I’m an artist because no words can express who I am. Painting, making art, is how I express myself. Sometimes it’s about self expression, more often a journey into the unknown. Self-awareness often seems like a process rather than a revelation. 

Part of my artwork is about narratives, creating and recording stories.

Working on an LGBTQIA+ exhibition in Edinburgh in 2016, entitled Proud City, I became aware that I had another narrative to write and illustrate: a new narrative that would attempt to combine my life experiences, artwork and my understanding of gender.

To gather evidence for the story involved solving a mystery. The most exciting mystery stories are the most unexpected, yet all the necessary evidence is staring at you, right under your nose.

I began to analyse my artwork as evidence. I had become a kind of artist-detective investigating my own life and work. I had also created three graphic novels, the first of these called MEDUSA was about a British soldier fighting in Iraq who was called home to find his daughter, Laura, who had gone missing. Instead of discovering Laura, he kept glimpsing a girl he had seen in Iraq. This work  had a kind of nightmarish quality but contained the theme of a continuing search for the Femme.

I came across a quote, or made one up – “gender as metaphor”. I wanted to try to understand what this might mean. It seemed to suggest that gender was something that stood for ‘something else’, like a symbol.

In my own work I saw themes of beauty, glamour, mystery, sensuality, colour, femininity.

What made me me was creating art. But what was the art and what did it stand for?

The artwork seemed to suggest a different me. I was aware of the use of ‘Spectrum’ describing a point, or points, on an imaginary line, What spectrum was there for me to recognise in relation to sexuality and gender?

Following on from this inquiry, I recently exhibited some new work in an exhibition entitled ‘NEITHER’ which examined issues of gender identity seen in parallel with current geographical and political uncertainties. By looking at boundaries and borders I developed wooden sculptures which suggested a relief map as a way of looking at gender issues.

What I experienced and recognised within my work was a kind of fluidity. A gender fluidity.

I keep going back to my artwork. I can never fully understand it, the work explains better than I can. However, I continue to struggle to understand why certain images are important and why some images stand out above the ‘noise’ of living.

My human gender edifice, (which was never built of solid rock), was shaken to the core. It had been dismantled and was waiting to be rebuilt. I am a site waiting to be built upon, ready to rise up like a non–binary Phoenix.

Chris Kent is an artist, illustrator and woodworker who identities as non-binary. Chris lives in the Scottish Borders and sometimes works in Edinburgh for Edinburgh Museums and running workshops. Chris explores ideas of identity/uncertainty mainly by making art.