“eliot” is an homage to the struggle of queer self-actualization: the ability to not just say you are queer, but to live a queer existence. In the past few years I’ve undergone what can only be described as an unceremonious dethroning; in my pursuit of liberation from the heteronormative, I found myself in a sort of pre-natal limbo, of being reborn in the shadow of the old self. And with it has come the uneearthing of a multitude of feelings: of rage, of delirium, of mania,of maternal disobedience, of shame, of joy.

These double exposures and photographs feature my first college roommate, Eliot, who was also one of the first openly genderqueer people I had ever met. A poet and drag makeup artist, their ability to transcend gender so effortlessly was intoxicating, but terrifying. We did a series of photoshoots together, in our dorm room bathroom and friend’s apartments. They were fun, simple. A way to pass the time and make new, better memories than the ones I had before. I didn’t quite understand the gravity of what we had made until putting this show together: that between classes and subway rides and getting near-blackout drunk in Brooklyn together, we had actually been able to capture, in real-time, the near-invisible sttruggle of what it actually means to cross the gender binary, to blur the line of man and woman, of human and human-like, of what it means to just be, no label required.

Read Eliot’s words on queer identity, and check out their website here.

In September 2023, Lauren debuted a gallery show at Studio 323 in Phoenixville, PA. To see the entire gallery show, click here.