A whore is a whore is a whore

2024–ongoing

photos by Lorenza Cini

This is a body of work which begins in an ongoing archive of makeup remover wipe “prints” that I make from my face. In these performances, I hang the prints from two lines, which are pinned to my temples with needles. My face is smeared with white paint.

The above photo documents the third iteration of this performance, developed at the workshop Constellations of Critical Bodies. The hanging makeup remover wipe prints extended from this grassy lawn through the open door and into the main building where the performances were held. I lingered in this frozen tableau, buried up to my neck in the dirt.

This piece is always site-responsive, and each iteration is different. It was originally developed in Los Angeles, and the name of this work is taken from a 1986 trial in which an LA judge dismissed charges for the violent rape of a prostitute on the grounds that, as he wrote, “a whore is a whore is a whore.”

Working girl

in collaboration with MJ Tom
photo by Riven Ratanavanh

2025

This installation was part of the group exhibition Proxy Chimera Oracle, held at the Reef in LA. A projector hangs from the ceiling, bound with rope. A piece of rice paper floats at the center of the space, fragile and semi-translucent, serving as a screen for a projected photo that is visible on both sides. From one side, the words “MY BODY” are visible, written into flesh. The other side reveals the words “OUR TIME,” as hair stitched over skin.

double or nothing

2025

video (4:10)

These video works are a series made in collaboration with my mother, Claire, in the aftermath of a debilitating car crash when she came to care for me.

receiver

2025

works including installation, performance, video, text

photo by Siqi Fan

photo by Claudia Thyrone

This was my thesis exhibition at CalArts, which featured two video works made in collaboration with my mother and an installation where I used chalk to mark the floors and walls of the space. These markings were diagrams where I attempted to make sense of my relationship with her through psychoanalytic theory. Texts that informed this research are scattered around the room.

The show closed with a 7-hour durational performance. For this length of time, I attached a rice paper screen to my temples. The screen hangs from lines that anchor in my skin. My gaze is bound to this projection of an image of my mother, my double. Here, I became the receiver for care that was “missed.” Returning to some unknown need or wish that was not met in childhood (mine or hers).

Mark me mark me mark me

works including video, installation, prints

2024

photo by Jake Thornton

still from video by Jessica Perez

“Lubricating this arcane luxury”

– Cassandra Troyan, Freedom and Prostitution

A stack of twenty dollar bills given to me by my mother, printed in my blood, takes flight in this installation. This work is made in collaboration with Kassandra Sparks, MJ Tom, and Jessica Perez.

When I look at you, I see me

2024

video (6:56)

Featuring the artist MJ Tom, this seven-minute film depicts an edge play BDSM “scene,” captured on a Go-Pro camera as part of a sadomasochistic two-day lock-in. The central drama of this scene is about a kind of identification which blurs the lines between self and other, and the violence of intimacy.

Marriage

2019–ongoing

Photo by Ephrain Gonzalez

These images document one of many wedding rituals in my marriage of queer friendship with Kassandra Sparks, marked by dramatic and hedonistic rituals of devotion celebrated in leather and whore community.

Photo by Ephrain Gonzalez

Photo by Eli Daar

in collaboration with Kassandra Sparks
surgery performed by MJ Tom

`Writing

“Why (After Bob Flanagan),” in The Holy Hour, Working Girls Press, 2023.

“Isn’t it dangerous? Or, on being my mother,” in ProMomme: A Sex Worker’s Guide to Parenting - Vol. 2, Cash Machine + SWOP LA + Sming Sming, 2025.