At its best, art can be a fluid co-creation with our subconscious. Jerry Saltz once said, “To make art is to show the outside world what your inside world is like.” By the law of equilibrium then, would it not make sense that the art we make might be in sharp in contrast with how the world expects us to be? 

As I enter the gallery, I am bewitched by an oozing alien mass, a soulless void of shiny black chrome… They thought if AI were more organic, wouldn’t we trust it more? Attempts to build an appealing biophilia faltered and backfired, the dark orbs becoming a swirling, impenetrable mass, like a black box, but without even the slightest semblance of a shape to help us begin to understand their innerworkings.

In this day and age, women are praised for “wearing our heart on our sleeve.” We feel, express, and give love as second nature, no matter how it drains us. And we must always paint our faces so as to be pleasing to others, adorned with pops of pink, red or purple, to suit the tenor of the occasion. And most of all, despite our vast experiences and inner worlds, we must hide our shadow sides. Women have become martyrs who carry the spiritual and emotional labor of entire societies… as a second job.

The flipside offers a poignant contrast. In the 21st century, men are still held to standards of industrial age masculinity, all while their handiness is a far cry from their forefathers, at least without the assistance of TaskRabbit or YouTube. Chasing corporate dreams from their desktop, many men feel disembodied and futile, unable to prove their value and constantly chasing the void, while simultaneously fleeing sources of connection and vulnerability. Men have been socialized into believing that emotions are symptoms of weakness, even defeat.

By the same law of equilibrium then, it makes sense that the art a man creates would be a convenient escape — an equal and opposite space. A colorful playground where he can be that tender boy who rests on his mom’s knee, holds hands with his imaginary friend, and dreams of playing with the flowers…

Taken together, these bodies of work invite us to question the societal rules that have seeped into our subconscious — gendered algorithms that have gone too far. We see a deep and growing desire for a renaissance of emotion in the digital age: a reclaiming of nuance, individuality, and nonbinary expression.

If art is about showing the outside world what our inside worlds are like, then let artists be our diplomats to the future. Let us not accept a hollow, inhuman, binary world. Let us act on a new imagination.

Throughout his campaign he described his vision of a concrete wall, 30 to 50 feet (9.1 to 15.2 m) high and covering 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of the 1,900-mile (3,100 km) border, with the rest of the border being secured by natural barriers.