Motley Stephens
they/he
Cleveland, OH, USA
I am a multimedia artist living in Cleveland, Ohio, and my work chronicles my gender transition as I experience it. Through surreal, strange, silly, and sometimes upsetting sculpture I am shining the spotlight on the highs and lows of this experience. I explore ideas of the metamorphosing body, sexual fluidity, and newfound homoeroticism. I not only honor and revere the girl I have outgrown while being able to recognize that I have created a life I can love by letting her go. There is simply so much trans joy to be had, and it will be mine.
“My work meditates the physical form's limitations, possibilities, and nuances. This work, made during a pivotal point in my gender transition, sheds light on the transgender experience. These works are made in response to the place I was coming from while pushing forward to the man I was becoming. Often the experience of transitioning is thought of as losing something or someone you were before. Still, through this work I not only acknowledge, but elevate, commemorate, and reclaim the body I am in.”
How does your work relate to the theme connection?
“Something that’s very important in my work is that I am documenting the process of my gender transition: the good, the bad, the ugly, and the absolutely beautiful. At the root of it, I’m doing this to create connection so maybe my work can get out there to even just one person who’s feeling the same way that I was when I first came to terms queerness and what that means to live a fully authentic and queer and trans life because that is like a statement you have to make every single day. I want people to know that they’re not making that statement alone."
What role does connection play in your creative process?
“Connection is important to my creative process in the sense that craft no matter what is something that is passed down from hand to hand for mentor to student, and there is just this rich rich history that allows you to feel that you are part of something greater than you."
What connection(s) does your queerness make to the world around you?
“We live in a world that makes it incredibly hard and incredibly exhausting to be queer or trans or authentically yourself, whatever that means. However, I’ve found the most powerful way to combat that is through connection. We can make things better for ourselves is through community, compassion, and connection. I often find myself going through my days thinking to myself ‘You’re not queer enough, you’re not trans enough’ and at the same time ‘You are all too trans and all too queer and all too much,’ and it’s through my interaction and relationships with other queer people that I can realize there is no one way and certainly no correct way to be queer."
"Naked, as Adam", sterling silver, freshwater pearls, 14" x 3.5" x 1.5", 2024Anything else you would like to share about this work? This can be an important part of the process, sourcing materials, or research.
“This piece is a live cast of my own body just before beginning to medically transition. It is made in reverence to the body I once inhabited and looks hopefully to my future vessel."