A Queer Opulent Utopia
Project Statement
I dream of a utopia for the transgender community. I immerse myself and friends into a landscape reminiscent of old master painting as a way to recognize our existence throughout time. Through my paintings, I create a space of comfortability, love, acceptance, and a place to finally relax with the people I love. I create a cover of protection and gratitude for myself and others in our community for the struggles we have all lived through.
My work references the Renaissance and Neoclassical era. To create a space of luxury and opulence for transgender people. However these paintings in their time were used to only capture the privileged, producing a massive loss of intimacy, truth, and realism. I take these techniques and produce new paintings with my own ideas, and my own community, bringing them far away from gender binaries and societal privilege.
In my world building, narrow definitions of sexuality and gender are not the expected standards; they don't reside with nature's laws like motion and gravity. This work is a fight for autonomy in a queer body. I want us to live without having to push against perceptions that don’t validate our choices or our existence.
I am so grateful for the generous permission of my friends to use their voices and images in honoring our collective worth.
Artist Bio
Daniel Sundberg is a transmasc artist who primarily paints portraits mimicking a Neoclassical style. Known for his lushly layered oil paintings, Sundberg glamorizes the existence of the transgender community. Raised in San Diego, CA, Sundberg is currently based in Portland, Oregon where he is an MFA in Visual Studies candidate at the Pacific Northwest College of Art.
