Believe They Are Worthy Too, by aung.robo.arts / Anastasio Wrobel

“Genderqueer and non-conformist are two of my roots,” writes Ansastasio Wrobel (known in the art world as aung robo) in their recent artist statement. “The former being a newly-worded shorthand for my identity and the latter, the original and the one that resonates most deeply.” These roots are in constant interplay throughout their artwork. Each painting forms a kind of visual record of that engagement: testing and changing lines, dragging paint across canvas, repainting, bringing in different media. Believe They Are Worthy Too offers visually stated binaries—inside/outside, ascent/descent, exterior/interior—even as those binaries challenge us to see something more: something outside, between, beyond. The halo’s double-painting points to who is and isn’t seen as sacralized. Wrobel writes, “Finding myself within this transgender community shows me so many components that are lacking for us. . . . I make this work for myself and count on connecting to and sharing it with others as well so that we may all get across the things that we are afraid of and better understand the world beyond ourselves.”