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Chrysalis: The Transformation of Chrys Conway

Chrysalis: The Transformation of Chrys Conway

I was especially excited to interview artist Chrys Conway. As she came to the door, she reminded me of a young woman emerging from a 1920s speakeasy. Her bobbed, ginger curls barely touched her shoulders as she bounced up to welcome me. She wore a vintage, linen dress with delicate lace trim and a drop waist.

With a broad grin, she opened the door to her apartment studio. Light filtered in through carefully placed glass vases which cast hues on the wooden floorboards. There were large portraits leaned along the entire length of the apartment. Some smaller watercolors were stacked neatly on the table next to an easel. Her paints were as much a part of the décor as the carefully curated treasures that adorned her bohemian cocoon.

I couldn’t help myself as I began spreading the delicate watercolors onto the table so that I could admire them. There was a historical quality to her work, and it was obvious that her paintings carried a transformative message.

“What is your favorite thing to create? Is it watercolor?” I asked

“Definitely watercolor.” She smiled warmly  “It dries so quickly; there’s a temperamental nature to it. I like to use it when I’m being really expressive, although I do use oils. When you’re doing an oil painting, you usually want to use less paint in the beginning. You build it with layers. So you always want to paint thinner layers, gradually building. The reason why you do it that way is so that everything will dry properly. If you were to paint with your thickest paints first, then thinner on top, it would crack the early paint.”

“What is your favorite topic to paint?”

“Well, I guess I’d have to enter that in a roundabout way,” she began. “I’m on a mission of sorts to try and walk people through what it means to transition emotionally through paintings. Right now, my subject matter is very much intimate portraits of me which in truth is so not fun, as you can tell from the few that are around.” She waved towards the images peering at us from behind the bookcases. “ I don’t keep a lot of them up; just the ones that are way too big to hide.”

She gingerly glanced across the room to a life-size portrait that confronts her daily.

“That one.” She pointed to the largest portrait, nearly as big as herself. “That one has been a work in progress for literally two years now, because I hate looking at it. I left it in the middle of the room. It’s my reminder.” She gathered her dress around herself and stood directly in front of the painting. Suddenly, it seemed as if she was speaking directly to it.

“This painting is called ‘Not a Pretty Girl.’ The reason for that is because that was something that was told to me; I will never be a pretty girl, that I will never be a real girl.” Comway sighed and smoothed out the wrinkles from her dress.

“This is what this painting is truly about. It doesn’t actually matter. If I’m pretty, it doesn’t actually matter. I can be ugly. I’m fine with being ugly, because that’s not important. You can respect me in my gender whether I’m pretty or ugly. It doesn’t matter.”

Her face became stern as she challenged her portrait, “and pretty isn’t a word that I’m aspiring to.”

Conway went on to explain that to her, being pretty is about being small. “It’s about being literal in your beauty. It’s about being pretty, but not too much that someone might be threatened by you. It’s about being enough, but not too much. You know, I’m not trying to be pretty. Being respected doesn’t require being pretty. That’s not just about me as a trans person. No girl needs to be a pretty girl in order to be respected. “

As she settled back on the couch facing the large self-portrait, she leaned back into the cushions and batted her curls from her face. “We all have to look in the mirror. This is my reminder to myself that you don’t actually need to be pretty today; you don’t actually need to look beautiful. I spend a good portion of time doing my makeup, but not really for myself. I see it as my gift to everyone who has to see me throughout the day. By me putting on mascara and eyeliner and blush and lipstick, it makes it so much easier for people to connect all the dots. I’m misgendered less often,  although it does a number on one’s self esteem to have to do that every day.

“But, I’m trying really hard to document this, because I know that it will be important for me in the future. And I think it’s really helpful for anybody who’s trying to understand what that pain can be like. What it is to look at yourself. When I look at myself in the mirror, it’s never okay. Maybe I did my wings right or my hair looks cool. I feel like that is gender dysphoria in itself. There’s a certain amount of hatred; there’s a certain amount of trying really hard to love it.

“It’s a weird line that trans people have to walk, finding self love yet trying to transition. At the same time, it’s things that everybody can relate to, because everybody usually has some level of body dysmorphia. We all look in the mirror and say, ‘Oh my god, these jeans are NOT doing it today.’ Everybody’s got that shit. Everybody has bad hair days. But with being trans, there’s another level to it. So that’s what I’m trying to document right now.”

I ventured, “But does the subject change as you do?”

“Oh, definitely. Last spring, I had a gallery showing. I had all of them up on the wall together. For the first time, I was seeing all the self portraits together. WOAH!”

When asked about her emotions while painting, Conway explained, “I have to get this out. It’s not something that I can control. It’s going to be ugly; it’s going to be awful; it’s going to be nasty, but that’s what I need to paint right now. Like this one over here.” She lifts a pencil drawing from a hidden cache behind her rows of paints. “You’re going to process emotions if you look at yourself and all you’re focusing on are all the things you hate. I was drawing myself neither as I am, nor as I would want myself to be. I was drawing the things that I build up in my head. But with dysphoria, it just blows it out of proportion. So, for example, I was looking at my chin and just drawing it as I see it mentally. It looked monstrous. I hated it so much, and I erased it completely and drew over it.”

Conway affirms that she sees the connection between the layers of her makeup and the layers of her emotional transformation that are applied through her paintings. She wants to share this experience through her art to others that may not have a medium to express themselves.

“I definitely see parallels. I think that’s why this particular painting is taking forever to complete, as it’s a few steps behind. It reflects the past so I can absorb the lessons from that and reflect, then move on to, hopefully, bigger and better changes.”

I suddenly became aware that the sunbeams had traveled across the length of the room, and their tiny prisms were collected near the stack of watercolors I had been admiring earlier. “What would your message be through your artwork? If your pictures could speak?”

She clasped her hands together and opened her eyes wide. “Find ways to love yourself. This is what I myself am trying to do with my art. Find ways to love yourself through your pain; find ways to love yourself through your limitations. See past facades and bodies.” Her face burst into a generous smile. “It’s what’s beneath that’s important.”

All art provided by Chrys Conway

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