Alternative Dysphoria and Subject Area

Alternative Dysphoria

I have a basic understanding of what dysphoria is, but I would struggle to explain it from my understanding of it alone, so after some research I discovered that it is a "profound state of unease or dissatisfaction" which also refers to the state of not being comfortable in one's own or current body which is known in some cases as 'gender dysphoria'. Dysphoria can also be accompanied by depression, anxiety or agitation, but the opposite state of mind is known as euphoria. This opposite od dysphoria and euphoria alone gives me alot more understanding of what dysphoria is and could look like if I was to create and present it in an art piece, sculpture or something within my subject area of illustration and concept art.

Val Denham
An interesting artist I came across while researching into alternative dysphoria was a transgender icon, musician and poet, Val Denham, who famously created the art and visual concept for Marc Almonds 'Marc the Mambas'. This video is an example of one of the groups songs called "In My Room".

Val describes and labels her work as 'Tranart'. She has been labeled as an 'Outsider artist' by some parts and people in the art community, but also as "one of the greatest colourists". Val describes her work as "A figurative and non-figurative semi surrealist symbolism, my art is a kind of therapy, the internal map of my neuroses, severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Gender Dysphoria, analyse the surface of 'Tranart' and you glimpse neurotic hieroglyphs trying to describe what it is to be, meanings always masked in a kind of visual code within my work. Even now I employ obscuring patterns and imagery; though the reason to do so no longer exists I no longer live a double life suppressing my true nature, but the code remains."
Her kind of art reminds me alot of the Fluxus movement, making and using out of context, strange objects and combinations to invoke a certain feeling, or different feelings to the viewer that has a hidden or deep meaning behind it that they can find out through analysing the piece or that the artist will only know about.








Henrietta Harris