"My Big Chin"

2020

Oil and pencil on vellum

My Big Chin is part of an ongoing series of portraits titled “To Plumb Rough Matter” which are created through a process of storytelling, photographic sessions, and painting. To make the portraits, I work with my subjects to reflect on their relationship to their body and intersecting identities. Through conversations guided by questions about their personal history and unique sense of self (physically, spiritually, and psychologically), each person identifies areas of their body that they routinely observe, touch, and think about. I then take a series of photographs focusing on the chosen parts of their bodies. These images serve as my primary reference in making the paintings with additional in person sessions as needed. Many of my subjects, myself included, have shared experiences of living with various disabilities. In My Big Chin, my own disabilities are reflected in the painting in subtle ways (skin discoloration, hair, scar tissue) that perhaps only someone with shared experiences would pick up on. The subtlety and specificity of the painting reminds us that disability is not always immediately perceived by those outside of ourselves but is incredibly common. My portraits, like My Big Chin, are a celebration of the multiplicity and ambiguity of disabled embodiment.

Julia González (she/they) is a queer, disabled, Mexican artist based in Chicago. Their work fluctuates between the hyperreal and the abstract, resulting in material and psychological tensions. González depicts minute particularities and subtle movements to invite slow and careful observation. Her practice is social, she strives to arrive at a place of mutual understanding through dialog and intimate study. González’s close relationships with their subjects fosters a compassionate mode of image-making that seeks to illuminate the complex ways we exist in relation to one another.