SARAHGONTARSKI

My journey as an artist has been, for the most part, an exploration of myself. Through manipulation of items not commonly associated with art, I focus on how we interact with the world around us. Many of my past and proposed works focus on gender, sexuality, and navigating the often messy and tumultuous experience of being a queer young adult. More recently, my works have also been heavily politically charged, using imagery of infants and children juxtaposed with dark topics and symbolism like abortion, violence, and trauma to shine a light on many of the injustices committed by those in power.

A major component of my studio practice as a predominantly assemblage-based sculptor comes from finding items and building pieces around them. One of my most time and labor-intensive pieces, Pursuit of Happiness, was conceived after I found a vintage rocking horse being given away on Facebook Marketplace. The act of finding the materials I use for pieces is both something I enjoy and an integral part of how I create my works.

My most recent work, Autobiography of an Autogynephile, is an exploration of the experiences of transgender women when confronted with the staggering amount of hateful and vitriolic rhetoric and propaganda both online and in mainstream media; at the same time, the piece is a love letter both to myself and other trans women harmed by said rhetoric. The piece consists of a toilet, itself a reference to the many bathroom bans passed by legislators in the last few years, covered in headlines, tweets, memes, and artwork all aimed at tearing transgender women down. Inside the tank of the toilet, I wrote and attached several notes with my personal thoughts, simultaneously pessimistic and hopeful, about the vitriol people like myself are confronted with daily. Coming out of the top of the tank, emerging from both the vitriol and my own thoughts, is a nearly six-foot plant stem, adorned by pink, blue, and white flowers, a direct nod to the transgender flag. This final component of the piece is autobiographical; it symbolizes how, even though I, and many people like myself, are the constant target of undue hate, we still fight our way through a world trying to tear us down and find ways to grow and flourish.