Willow Watson

I am a Black transfemme writer, creative, narrativist, and organizer hailing from the Black Midwest via unceded Mississauga, Kaskaskia, and Erie territory (Cleveland, OH).

My artistic practice is an exercise in pragmatic art, or art which has active utility in the life of the artist and the witnessing community. As such, my work often coalesces into hybrid forms such as prayers, holy texts, confessional diary entries, unsolicited advice, and other multidimensional mediums.

My work examines the tether between the sacred and the profane, namely in unearthing “the gospel truth” from sites of excess, deviancy, transgression, and abjection. I am concerned with (trans)mutation as a praxis for encountering and consuming the deprave, as a means towards integration, evolution, and (trans)cendence.

I am currently investigating how my practice expresses itself in other mediums, such as visual art (ex. photography, risography, printing), performance (ex. ritual art, ritual practice), and digital mediums/storytelling.