ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Mason Weiss’s experience of metamorphosis as a transgender person permeates his practice, and so his sculptures exist as a tangible story of transformation. He engages in processes associated with “women’s work” to stitch together his queer identities primarily with textiles and beadwork to create self-portraits, wearables, and interactive works that reclaim his individual history.  

Weiss utilizes a method of “freestyle stitching” as a resistance to the use of patterns, which frees him from adhering to a formulaic approach in his work. This technique directly correlates to queerness; by defying predetermined societal expectations, he liberates himself by redefining and reconciling his relationship with gender and sexuality.

By reimagining some of his favorite childhood memorabilia, Weiss utilizes a playful nostalgia while chronicling his lived experiences. He continues to build a novel mythology for his hybridized creatures and self-commemorative work to foster compassion towards a former self that he had felt imprisoned within. Weiss invites viewers to witness the tension between his body, psyche, and desires through experiencing his physical representations of personal vulnerability.