The Missouri artist’s work channels physical and emotional refuge as a means of resisting panic during the fight for trans survival.
This article is part of Hyperallergic’s Pride Month series, featuring an interview with a different transgender or nonbinary emerging or mid-career artist every weekday throughout the month of June.
As state governments across the country restrict the rights and freedoms of gender-nonconforming people, St. Louis-based visual artist and trans woman Hannah McBroom has reoriented her practice to explore the concept of safe spaces where she can simply just be. On top of their ongoing fight for freedom, discerning where to find safety is a primary concern for LGBTQIA+ Americans. McBroom notes that even spaces that promote acceptance and provide platforms can be unintentionally reductive, rooting her to her identity rather than her practice. Seeking points of safety amidst her current events, McBroom works to assuage her anxieties through meditative and observational artmaking informed by her surroundings. As a figurative artist with a technical background, McBroom is now utilizing therapeutic rituals to train herself and her practice to embrace the vulnerability, intimacy, and imperfections that mark her journey toward abstraction.
“I’m letting go of this control and letting the work do its thing,” she said, mentioning her perfectionistic tendencies in both art and life. Between the sterile solitude of the doctor’s office and the greenery of the natural world, McBroom’s work structures areas of both physical and emotional refuge as a means of resisting panic during this fight for survival. The artist’s Two Year Hymn series, consisting of 24 self-portraits documenting her transition, is currently on view through the end of the month at the 21c Museum Hotel’s group exhibition The Future is Female in Nashville, Tennessee.
Hyperallergic: What is the current focus of your artistic practice?
Hannah McBroom: I’ve been working on several drawings and smaller paintings. I’ve allowed myself to explore the questions that were there for me during my graduate program which I never felt I was able to unpack and explore fully. I’m making two separate but related series of works: the personal safe spaces of the woods and the anxieties that invade my safe spaces.
There are several paintings that are of the forest; branches and greenery that cloak or enfold figures that are emerging or reeling back into the blind. My therapist encouraged me to spend time imagining a safe space for myself and suggested I start drawing what that space could be. I started by trying to imagine what space could look like in a 2D space. “Waiting Room” (2021) was an early example of this idea. Looking at the patterned seats in the waiting room was a way to keep my mind engaged while waiting to be seen for checkups or blood work.
To me, it is very clear that trans, nonbinary, and intersex bodies are actively being erased politically, socially, and medically. Living in the South, I have my ear to the news every day and these policies have been reported at an alarmingly accelerated rate. That constant anxiety made its way into the drawings of the forests and greenery. I started drawing hunters in red coats with red hats and hunting rifles who move silently through the woods and fields, seeking invisible bodies to exterminate.
H: In what ways — if any — does your gender identity play a role in your experience as an artist?
HM: Earlier in my career I focused a lot on my gender identity. Two Year Hymn (2017–2019) was a timeline of my hormone replacement therapy (HRT) transition over the course of two years. It was the most meaningful piece I made because of the vulnerability I was able to produce and have the fortune to showcase in several southern states (currently on display in Tennessee). It was a piece I knew I needed for myself. I knew others going through a similar journey could appreciate or relate to the journey of starting HRT. I really wanted others to understand what the effects of dysphoria looked like and the clarity that happens in the later stages of HRT where you’re able to start seeing yourself — this would be like climbing out of a cloud and finally being able to taste the air.
For the last few years, I’ve been focusing a lot more on accessibility for myself. I work a full-time job so getting home and painting or drawing for an hour or two is the best I can do along with an additional day for the weekend. The paintings and drawings I’ve been making aren’t directly linked to gender identity but are informed by my experiences as a neurodivergent trans woman. The Hunter series has some linkage to gender identity as a byproduct, but the Forest series is more related to honing a place where I can feel safe and present in a space.
I’ve been avoiding creating work directly about my gender identity. As a visible trans woman, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to showcase work or participate in panels. There’s nothing wrong with these opportunities, but after talking with other artists and reflecting on those experiences I felt that a few of those opportunities were provided simply based on my identity as being trans rather than solely on my work.
on paper, 9 x 6 inches
HM: For the last two years, I’ve had a crush on Lisa Yuskavage and Ruprecht von Kaufmann for their color palettes, abstraction of form, and intricate compositions. I have the privilege of living within walking distance of the Saint Louis Art Museum, so I’ve been frequenting every weekend to look at works by Joan Mitchell, Gerhard Richter, Kerry James Marshall, and Anders Zorn.
Most of my inspiration comes from music, films, and memory. I get a lot of sensory and emotional information from watching a film or listening to an album. Several of my titles come from particular songs or albums that I’ve listened to on repeat while working on a piece like Perfume Genius’s “Slip Away.” The lyrics and bubble gum pop style of that music video deeply impacted my thesis body when I was working on my graduate degree.
H: What are your hopes for the LGBTQIA+ community at the current moment?
HM: My hopes are twofold: that normative and fascist policies focused on trans erasure will evaporate into the night, and that political and medical communities will restructure their institutions to include the needs and agency of transgender, nonbinary, and intersex persons. I specifically hope that legislation on the federal level will be passed to protect transgender, nonbinary, and intersex persons rather than just temporary executive orders or non-actions. I want everyone who is LGBTQIA+ to exist, feel love, and be safe. It’s incredibly dangerous simply to exist for this community, especially with calls for extermination coming from conservative pools. My own personal hope is that I can go to Pride without fear of losing my life.
Rhea Nayyar
Rhea Nayyar (she/her) is a New York-based teaching artist who is passionate about elevating minority perspectives within the academic and editorial spheres of the art world. Rhea received her BFA in Visual… More by Rhea Nayyar
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