Luka by Luka Weinberger

Luka, 2023
Luka Weinberger
24″x40″
Watercolor on Yupo paper
1200

Luka
They/Them
Watercolor on Yupo paper
2023

I decided to illustrate a moment that has been part of my life every single day since I was around 14. Every morning, I reshape my chest in the mirror, just to give myself that moment of relief from dysphoria. This was my way of feeling some control over my body. I chose watercolor on Yupo paper because it is such a challenging surface and medium to control. It takes patience, intention, and some amount of surrender. And this was my journey to self-acceptance.

“Trans, to me, means pique self-awareness from a very young age. It means biting into the fruit of knowledge before you have the vocabulary to describe what you taste. And that’s why trans visibility and radical, LOUD acceptance is so essential: so that we may not lose another trans child to their own crippling fears and loneliness. And that they don’t need to wait until their twenties, thirties, or even seventies to begin to accept themselves.”