Alter, solo exhibition by El(ena) Hoskyns-Abraham

London based artist El(ena) Hoskyns-Abrahall (they/he) shares their debut solo exhibition exploring gender through the lens of the trans-masculine experience. El(ena)’s practice sits in a place of transition, finding and excavating what it means to be in progress or in the midst of process. When a transgender person begins medical transition it is almost as if they are transported to a point of adolescence again. Voice cracks, skin changes, body odour, new hair growth and more emotions than you know what to do with are all textbook for the adolescent experience, but pair this with choice, with wanting, with needing, and you have second-adolescence. Where often there is embarrassment or shame, instead you find bliss.

There is so much beauty to be found in masculine adolescence, beauty which is so often skipped over and reduced to humorous stories of cringe. The artist feels strongly that through the eyes of the transgender experience we are able to isolate and amplify those little pockets of beauty because they are symptoms of something that is so desperately desired as opposed to endured. It is the artists aim to open up this experience to allow those who do not experience gender incongruence to gain access to that perspective. El(ena) reveals the beauty and vulnerability of being in a state of flux.

Through the language of devotional or sacred objects, the artist explores the planes of queer embodiment through devotional objects. Casting symbols which make reference to the adolescent experience, he uses the visual language of votive offerings to create icons of transmasculine becoming. 

Precious materials such a silver, bronze, porcelain and glass intermingle with materials of traditional devotional offerings like wax while pieces of furniture or folded environments become backdrops for a reliquary of the self made. Sculptural objects meet jewellery meet artifact.