Date of Award
Spring 5-7-2025
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Visual Art
Degree Type
Thesis
Abstract
This thesis examines the ways in which collage is an ontologically transgender medium due to its freedom from traditional artistic formal and narrative structures. Considering that many trans experiences center around dichotomies, juxtaposition, and self-definition, collage is the best equipped to communicate these experiences in innovative ways. Through interrogations of feminized labor and the ways in which the art world upholds harmful gender binaries, as well as discussions of Femmage, maladjustment, and obsession, I argue that the fragmentary nature of photomontage, digital collage, and videomontage can externally express the multitude of feelings and identities contained within a body, to a greater extent than that of other forms of art.
Language
English
Program Chair
Tiffany Calvert
Thesis Text Advisor
Tamsin Kimoto
Faculty Mentor
Monika Weiss
Committee Member
Heather Bennett
Committee Member
Sage Dawson
Recommended Citation
Wojtkowski, Czeslawa, "Hot Girls Don't Worry About Copyright: Trans/Formative Works and the Femmage Lifestyle" (2025). MFA in Visual Art. 31.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/mfa_visual_art/31
Artist's Statement
My art is NOT! about men. “But how,” you ask, “if you are talking about the pain they’ve caused you?” Because it’s not ABOUT THEM!
The lushness of velvet and lace, the radiance of sequins and glass beads and glitter could NEVER be about an evil man. They have tried to destroy things that are beautiful to me, like love and sex and one time a vintage purse, so I would never acknowledge them with beauty. I would never use nudity or sexiness in my work to appeal to a straight man. They don’t understand how it can be used to express a yearning for acceptance and recognition, like layering beadwork atop a 1930s Colgate advertisement. While I use images of those exploited by men, such as Playboy models and Broadway showgirls, the purpose is NOT to attract the male gaze.
My art is about ME and EVERYONE who has suffered at the hands of men! I use this imagery and these materials because I see myself in those women and I use those materials to comfort myself, both physically and mentally. My tapestries are large and soft and gorgeous, a lovely and revenge-seeking weighted blanket.
Many horrible nights will never be forgotten. The emotional toll still lingers. But we are still worthwhile and divine, and so the least I can do is produce a mushroom cloud of excessive beauty that destroys every man who would attempt to inflict his ugliness upon us. The enormous scale of my work envelops you; the dizzying jumble of hyper-glitched images in my collages and videos are banshee screams on behalf of anyone who has ever been pushed aside for the crime of desiring.
Am I hysterical? YES! I HAVE to scream because you people don’t want to get it! I am screaming so that you cannot tell me I am wrong. I am screaming because that is the only way anyone will notice that I am even TRYING to say something! Evil men walk the streets every day and they are allowed to do whatever they want with impunity and no one will do anything about it, so I have to make myself unignorable in the loudest way possible. And if you have a problem, you can FIGHT ME!!!