faggot [self portrait], ink + watercolor crayon drawings, postcards on canvas 2025
a mythic scene. our hero, a smiling, shirtless somewhat chubby mulleted dude with shorts and fancy black shoes, stands in a gurgling mudpit next to a watercolor flower head.a concerned stone figure and firepit? flank xyr body. in the middle, an ancient roman bath. a sleepy, distrustful curled up goat on the stone outside the bath casts her gaze upon the sight.a wide-eyed rabbit head is framed by four four pointed diamond/star shaped game pieces. or maybe they are growths? or just part of Him? steam rises from the silly rabbit’s head and there are jutting rocks leading to an oceanic mountainous scene on top. on the right half of the piece, the words “faggot” letter by letter vertically on a colorful tiedye scribble watercolor extravaganza. a watercolorcrayon dragon perches on the letter “a” with Her gaze toward the rising steam.
there is a path, paper + digital, 2024
I used to have recurring fantasies of washing ashore at some monastery, without memory, and taken in as equal with care. Given everything that I needed, including Purpose. It never got further than that, just the act of being Taken In and Submerged. I had a Thirst for community and was so lonely. It wasn’t One thing that Solved Everything but doing my dance rituals and taking action in community and making art and feeling uncomfortable and joyful and fucking depressed and starting meds and finding more friends that created a foundation. I am still in the process of becoming , and I will be until I die.
all images are hand cutouts of the Pamela Coleman Smith tarot, digitized and repeated to form something new. Image ID: Pamela Coleman Smith hand cut + digitized tarot collage. The 6 of swords figure (three people in a boat, backs facing the front, one steering in the back and 6 swords obscuring and leading the way. On wavy water headed into calmer water. At the shore the Hermit , an elder in a cloak holding out a star in a lantern, waits as a lighthouse. There are boulders along the shore but a clear cut path up a jagged mountain range. The new moon eclipse casts Her gaze down on the path with a crown of three pentacles. A hand emerges from a cloud and holds out a cup and a winged lion hovers over it.
moving images (2023)
filmed, edited, written,+ composed by h. murray valentine
still from “moving images”. text: apple flesh bends to the light as supplicant.
The poem-video idea was inspired by an image description and alt text workshop held by Disabled & Queer Art House.