Artist’s Statement

“The Newly-Crowned King of Mars” I and II, Skylar Swift Kardon, 11×14” digital print, Masculinity Project Collective, December 2020.

This diptych of pieces explores the beauty of new and freshly grown masculinity, combining a transmasculine figure with the motifs of spring, royalty, and finding life in unexpected places. Coming from an upbringing where I never thought of masculinity as anything but destructive, and then realizing my trans masculinity as an adolescent, I created these pieces to envision masculinity as new life and creation rather than destruction. It may be a lonely and isolated form of beauty, but it is hopeful, not hopeless.