LA Art Show 2026. Jaunary 7 - 11.

Artist's Statement.

In 2019 I had two well received shows, LA Art Show and “Testosterone” at Bert Green Fine Art. After that I started what was next, and there are three of those paintings here, all large format. (I tend to work large to small.)

Then: life. 

The economy shifted, my income did not. I moved, I took a new job that was 70-80 hours a week. I didn't paint. 

In 2023, Trans Scare. I live in Glendale, CA. I am active in my community, and I became a long-haul target because of a painting I'd sold 6 years earlier: Pink Jerkoff Boy.

Pink Jerkoff Boy was a cataloging back and forth with Bert. Over the phone, he was trying to describe the (one of several) “Untitled” paintings he was looking at, and a title was born. And because my maturity peaks at sophomoric movie comedies like Tommy Boy and Water Boy, I thought it funny and kept it. 

Pink Jerkoff Boy was painted in 2016. It was shown in 2017 and purchased in 2017 by a heterosexual cis woman with two children. It was referenced in a 2018 article as MY identity.

The End.

NOT SO FAST!

In 2023 it was noticed online. I was already being harassed and my artwork was already part of the harassment, but Pink Jerkoff Boy became the central focus. Deadnamed, mis gendered, doxed, verbally and physically harassed, filmed in public around town, featured on podcasts, a social media kicking boy, I was anointed the mentally ill pornographic/pedophilic artist grooming children at our schools, a red flag, a lawsuit waiting to happen. 

2023 became 2024 before the barrage of harassment ebbed. The silence that followed was eerie. My life was ravaged for clicks and likes for a solid year+ and then: crickets. No flowers?  No thank you card? “Thanks for letting us squeeze you to within an inch of your life so we could further our own desperate need for relevance, good luck with all that.” ?.

I started painting. To process what happened. What continues to happen. 

LA Art Show 2026. January 7 - 11.

2015? or before - During a visit to NYC, I get a new tattoo: boY. It is tattooed over my heart.

2016 - I paint “untitled.” It is 8x8” It is first posted on my newly launched private IG page 12/31/17. Most of my paintings are untitled, something that presents a cataloging nightmare for my gallery. To help with that - paperwork and sales - he gives them all random names, none official or meant to stick. The random name he gave this one was Pink Jerkoff Boy. I thought it was funny so I kept it.

July - September, 2017. Pink Jerkoff Boy is at the Brand Library and Art Center show, “When Line becomes Form.” The painting is purchased December 2017 by a cis, heterosexual mother of two.

It is not the only piece with the word “boy.” This one also accompanied my comments in a New York Times series on transgender experiences.

June 8 - July 1, 2018. Some local friends and myself curate a show for ACE/121 Art Gallery, “QUEER: What Makes You Queer?” It was the first LGBTQIA+ art show in Glendale, and - a multi venue event with Abril bookstore/Roslin Art Gallery - it was the first LGBTQIA+ Armenian art show in the world. It is an all-inclusive, all-invited art show.

I have a small assemblage in the show that is an old one-off I’d never shown. It sells.

Towards the end of the show Arno over at Abril gives me the phone number of one of a group of GUSD educators who also happen to be GSA advisors. They stumbled across the show at his gallery (ACE/121 was closed) and wanted to talk about a collaboration. I connect with the educator. She brings to hers and other GUSD-GSA’s the idea of doing a joint art show. It is decided and planning will begin February 2019. It will be a multi-generational art show that gives students a chance to show with professional artists in an art gallery. We meet after school hours with participating GSA advisors through the planning process. The meetings are led by the GSA advisors. Students participate during a few - not - all of the meetings. We arrive, we meet for an hour, we leave. We have no direct or unsupervised interaction with the students. The students don’t know I’m an artist, I never mention it, they never see my art. I do not have lessons with them or otherwise interact with them beyond these supervised planning meetings.

12/11/2018 - Good Reading Copy - John McIntyre, who will later do a longer LARB interview, includes in this article Pink Jerkoff Boy, writing, “On the other, we have nudes that carry the force of an imperative, as in Untitled(EO1) or Pink Jerk Off, as if to both assert his identity and satisfy the eternally intrusive..”

May 13 - 17, 2019 - Crescenta Valley HS art gallery.

July 1 - July 13, 2019 - ACE/121 art gallery.

Both openings are well attended by parents, students, educators, and elected officials. Both nights are really just great for everyone. None of my paintings were displayed or seen by educators or students at GUSD, they were not germane to our collaborative purpose.

I will return to  CV campus one last time for an hour at lunch to support a single Solidarity Week program, also attended by a sitting city councilmember who urges us to do a big Pride event.

October 2019 is the last time I ever go to CVHS.

4 years later…

9/12/23 A Passion Play in three parts. While I hit Jordan Henry’s radar 6/18/23, it takes them a while to find Pink Jerkoff Boy. This is the premiere night for it. Venue 1. Glendale Board of Education meeting. Mr. Henry has printed the image of P-JOB. At 18 x 24 it is almost 7x larger than the original. In response to - er - this - the BOE prohibits signs in their meetings. A long spectacle follows that will eventually devolve into shouting, but before then Mr. Henry tucks the image into his pants in an endeavor to claim it as clothing, and thus permissible. He does not get in.

Venue 2. Mr. Henry engages in a 16 minute monologue in his car where he goes off about not only P-JOB, but half a dozen other paintings he’s printed up, all but one oversized.

Venue 3. Glendale city council. Satisfied with neither the BOE meeting nor the car, Mr. Henry closes his trilogy at city council during public comments with a bonus Norma Rae epilogue.

9-12- 10/2/23  I am now in all comments and articles referred to as Dead Name - Pornographic Artist, or Dead Name - Pedophilic artist.

10/2/23. I launch the IG page, Pink Jerkoff Boy. A GUSD employee is arrested for inappropriate physical contact with minors. In anticipation of how this will affect what is already happening, I launch the IG page - because up to this point the entire narrative, wholly erroneous it may be, is still the only one being offered. Over time I will methodically respond to every statement and post and comment and podcast and meeting and accusation with the extinct concept of facts. I purposely bio the page to fuck with them. I’m supposed to cower and hide and apologize? For what? No, you want to come get me? Come HARD. I am all the boys.

10/3/23 The arrest is announced and I am immediately linked to the arrest, from this point on my “pedophilic art” is an urgent red flag. The urgent connection is introduced by Mr. Henry during the same dated city council meeting during public comments - after he talks about the local power plant - citing Pink Jerkoff Boy as proof of podophilic behavior.

10/9/23/23 Mr. Henry brings his campaign to social media, referencing my artwork as pedophilic and explicit. He is asking why am I still granted access to “our kids”

10/10/23 Mr. Henry has circumnavigated the No Signs rule at GUSD - BOE meetings by printing the painting Pink Jerkoff Boy onto t-shirts, several. He finds two takers, himself and Ray Shelton. Along with Alex Balekian, the comments address my new IG page, Pink Jerkoff Boy. While Misters Shelton and Henry drive the usual pedophilia lines, with Mr. Henry stressing “this is a red flag, this is pedophilic art, Not a man, this is a boy masturbating.” Mr. Balekian states the arrest in conjunction with Pink Jerkoff Boy points to a “pattern of neglect and abuse” that “will bleed the district dry.”

Mr. Balekian will further the erroneous narrative into new territory by claiming me as the artist of public art as featuring “naked boys, some with erections, some with dripping bodily fluids.” (NEVER)

12/19/23 Bros & Brews podcast …“produces art that is literally porn, literally child porn of a boy masturbating.”

This is Part 1 of this story, featuring

Jordan Henry @GUSDParentsVoices Ray Shelton Alex Balekian Maro Yacoubian Mike Mohill Wisenuts Podcast Vanessa Kachadurian Aneta Krpkeyan Stay tuned for Part 2, adding to the line up Glendale Police Department, current Glendale Mayor Ara Najarian, and Beth Brooks.

LA Art Show 2026. January 7 - 11.