Stuffed
Fat Pervs Unite
November 1st - December 12th, 2025
Curated by: Anna Mirzayan
Featuring work from: Jesse Egner, Ren Buchness, Tore Hallas, BOARLORD, Zoë Schneider, Jaqc Garcia
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 1st, 4:00 - 6:00PM
Unruly bodies, filth, excess, ephemeral encounters… STUFFED explores the intersection of fat and queer communities through the fantasy space of perversion. Some pieces directly engage with mythology and biblical struggle, while others make public the private of cyber intimacy. By featuring all fat, queer artists, the works in this show illuminate the vibrant communities that have blossomed at the intersection of fat liberation, queerness, and anti-imperialist struggles.
Anti-fat bias is sometimes known as ‘the last acceptable bias.’ Though this is clearly both problematic and untrue, it does highlight how deeply rooted anti-fatness is in our society, and how uncomfortable many people are with confronting it. The history of anti-fat bias has always been intertwined with systemic racism, sexism, and classism; the burden of fatness is felt most acutely by communities marginalized in other ways by capitalist imperialism.
STUFFED eschews mainstream narratives about body positivity, instead harnessing the powerful dread conjured by the obesity epidemic, and explores the intersection of fat and queer communities through the frequent framing of both as kinds of perversion. It exposes the historical and contemporary intersections of fatphobia with anti-queerness and transphobia, as outgrowths of broader cultural pathologization in modern Western medicine. By featuring all fat queer artists in order to illuminate the vibrant communities that have blossomed at the intersection of fat liberation, queerness and anti-imperialist struggles, the exhibition will queer the notion of perversion itself by reframing and embracing it as solidarity-building, specifically between fat and queer/kinky communities.
STUFFED is informed by fat studies scholars like Dr. Caleb Luna, whose work against healthist-futurism is an outgrowth of queer theorist Lee Edelman's treatise against heteronormative reproductive futurism. Luna theorizes fatness as a confrontation with one’s own mortality, which in turn inspires fear and repulsion. The exhibition contains several artworks that explore the intersections of pathologization and perversion, ephemera and pleasure. STUFFED embraces the temporary fantasy realms that are created through solidarity between fat bodies and other ‘unruly’ subjectivities.These spaces of excess don’t last–they necessarily come together for a short period of time and then decompose; don't despair! Here, temporary pleasures are celebrated for their fleeting nature. We’re all just cruising through utopia.
Artist bios:
Jesse Egner is a queer artist and educator currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Often taking the form of playful and absurd photographic portraiture of himself and other individuals, his work explores themes such as queerness, body image, collaboration, humor, and play. He received his BA from Millersville University of Pennsylvania and his MFA from Parsons School of Design. His work has been exhibited and published globally and is included in the permanent collection at the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts. He is a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship recipient and has participated in residencies at the Santa Fe Art Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Bunnell Street Arts Center in Homer, Alaska; Studio Vortex in Arles, France; Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, New York; the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont; and TILT Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Jaqc Garcia is a queer, nonbinary, latine multi-disciplinary artist and curator whose work explores the intersections of community, fatness, food, and sexuality. They received their BFA in Studio Art from the University of Houston Clear Lake and their MFA in Printmaking at Ohio University. Their work has been shown both nationally and internationally including in ELLIO Fine Art in Houston, Texas, Dairy Barn Arts Center in Athens, Ohio, KINK Contemporary in Cleveland, Ohio, and University of Sharjah in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. They were awarded 2025 Gamblin Emerging Printmaker Award. They organize Fat Print- a yearly print exchange portfolio with a varying theme exclusively for fat artists by fat artists.They are the founder of Fat Artist Network, a non-profit organization that serves as a resource to find information on fat art, fat artists, fat art lectures, fat artist talks, and connect fat artists to each other. They currently work as an Adjunct Professor at San Jacinto Community College and Lonestar College, and as a Programs Assistant at DiverseWorks.
Zoë Schneider (she/her) works in sculpture, video, and installation to critically examine the complexity of fat identity. Schneider holds an MFA from the University of Saskatchewan (2018), and a BFA from the Alberta University of the Arts (2009). In Canada, Schneider has exhibited solo and group exhibitions in Regina, Saskatoon, Estevan, Guelph, Mississauga, Lethbridge, and internationally in Denmark, Germany, and the United States. Schneider’s first international solo exhibition will take place in Pittsburgh, PA in the Fall of 2024. Schneider is the 2021 recipient of the Visual Award for Female Artist, Jane Turnbull Evans Fund from the Saskatchewan Foundation for the Arts and has received multiple artist grants from SK Arts and the Canada Council for the Arts. Schneider lives and works in Regina, Treaty 4 Territory, Saskatchewan, Canada.
BOARLORD is a fat trans South Asian artist, writer, sex worker, independent videogame developer, and unrepentant furry. Fat liberation through fat perversion is her life’s work. Her short, experimental videogames are designed to help fat transsexuals access pleasure. Their ongoing development is generously funded by her Patrons. Additionally, BOARLORD is a two-time National Magazine Award finalist for her essays on fatness. Her bylines have appeared in Literal Bimbos, Hazlitt, and The Outline. She has been quoted extensively in the likes of WIRED, 404 Media, and The New Yorker. She presently lives in Toronto working on her non-fiction debut for Strange Light.
Tore Hallas works within themes of fatness and queerness, and fatness as queerness; religious ontologies and intention; as well as photographic and cinematographic reflection as both theme and method. Primarily with video, photography and text, as well as teaching with a focus on empathetic feedback. Economic structural and interpersonal oppression, personal narratives, and the intersectionalities of violences and positionalities are undercurrents in his works, along with travelling as both physical displacement and symbolic quest, and the interaction between the world and the othered body and mind. He holds an MFA from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, is the recipient of the Danish Arts Councils career program ‘The Young Artistic Elite’, as well as the Poul Erik Bech Foundations Art Prize and the 15. Juni Foundations Honorary Art Prize, and has exhibited both nationally and internationally in USA, Sweden, UK, Finland, Germany, Portugal & South Korea. His works are part of the collections at Vejle Museum of Art, Malmö Museum of Art, Sorø Art Museum, The Danish Arts Foundation, and ARKEN Museum of Contemporary Art.
Ren Buchness (they/them) is a contemporary artist & fat, queer activist based in Tucson, Arizona. By combining painting & performance, they aim to foster dialogue and understanding of the fat, queer, and trans experience within the current political and social environment in the United States. In 2013, they received their BFA in Studio Art from Florida State University, and in 2018 earned their Master of Fine Art with a focus in painting & video from the University of Arizona. They currently teach a variety of fine art courses including figure drawing and watercolor painting at local colleges and universities. Ren’s work has been shown in multiple galleries across the country. Their work has also been featured in several publications both nationally and internationally.. They are also committed to cultivating a stronger trans and queer community through event planning and marketing with Fluxx productions, a local non-profit focused on queer community and creativity. Most days, you can find Ren in the studio, creating works of art that celebrate and explore the fat, queer experience.
Photo Credits: Sandra Oviedo
Stuffed
Fat Pervs Unite
November 1st - December 12th, 2025
Review by Gretchen Hasse
“Gretchen, you’re very chubby. Look at that bucket. Are you sure you need all that on your plate?
I feel pretty confident saying that every young person has heard something like this when they are growing up. Body shaming. It can be subtle, it can be blatant; it all has impact.
We are shaped by the limits of these words, these attitudes. Many times they force us into a lifelong resentment of our own corporal existence, eternally despairing that we do not meet a standard that was never meant to be possible.
Or, we rebel. That pisses people off.
STUFFED hits me hard. As someone who does not identify as fat, or queer, I still rejoice at the unbridled, celebratory honesty of this exhibition. Curator Anna Mirzayan says that fat studies scholar Dr. Caleb Luna “theorizes fatness as a confrontation with one’s own mortality, which in turn inspires fear and repulsion.”
That makes sense to me. American culture in particular doesn’t like admitting that it can’t conquer something it doesn’t understand. Fatness, queerness, death. These are threats. STUFFED does not apologize for any of it.
The poster for the show, from the series All Trussed Up by Ren Buchness, feels soothing. The light watercolors, the herbs and fruit evoking the smell of holiday dinners. Looking at it, I think, “comfort food.” Maybe that’s weird? I think it’s okay if that’s weird.
“No Femmes, No Fats” was a phrase that confronted artist Jesse Egner as he began exploring his identity. Preemptive rejection dismisses any attempt at human connection. How sad for everyone. Egner’s portraits are pastel toned, inviting the viewer in, making us comfortable exploring the potentially difficult topics he explores. Sometimes it’s absurd, and we laugh together. Human connection happens.
Golosa en la Cama (Sweet Treat in Bed) by Jaqc Garcia presents a combination of gentle elements that subvert their own gentleness. A fat femme lies in a bed covered with smashed, frosted cake. As they languorously stretch and roll on the sheets, the femme further smashes the cake and sends chunks of it dropping stickily to the floor. They even have frosting up their ass. I am mesmerized by this piece; I smell it and I feel it. It is so transgressive for such a simple action. I begin to enter into the heart of the exhibition.
Gretchen, you’re too skinny. I can count every vertebrae.
When I was fifteen, I contracted juvenile idiopathic arthritis, an autoimmune disease. (In retrospect, it made sense that my body was attacking itself. I had hated my body for years.) The onset was acute. I abruptly lost thirty pounds, and my period stopped for seven years. The weird thing is that I saw this as a triumph. I developed an eating disorder to preserve my unnatural thinness; and Mom still found a way to criticize me.
Tore Hallas’ Closer to God examines the perceived desirability of bodies. Is fat desirable? It asks. Afflicted at the age of fifteen with a disease that left me crooked, disabled, and crippled with pain, I understand this question. Am I desirable? Is that even possible? For decades I ignored whole parts of myself in order to achieve sexiness. Hallas’ photographs allow all bodies to be desirable.
Zoë Schneider’s fantastical and borderline frightening sculptures remind me how I felt about my own burgeoning deformities. After my double knee replacements a few years ago, the doctor sent me a photograph of the surgery. Bloody bone fragments nearly filled a plastic bin. They’re called osteophytes, a result of bone rubbing on bone for decades. I think they’re something like pearls. I had a friend make me a regal necklace from one of the bigger fragments; they are beautiful. This is what bodies do.
BOARLORD, the video game, is a boundless exploration of transfat4transfat cruising, “designed to be played with one hand.” We see it, we experience it. This is what bodies do.
Gretchen, be careful with the weight lifting. Don’t let yourself get too big.
ENOUGH.
These attacks can be about size, they can be about a lot of things. Mostly they’re about conformity, shame, control. Clearly my body was never going to be good enough for her; so I told my mother to leave me alone, my body was my own. To her credit, she never criticized me again. I think she admired me for confronting her. God knows she heard the same type of thing from her own parents.
STUFFED is a celebration. Many of the participating artists work actively to build welcoming spaces for the trans / queer/ fat community, and also reach out to communities beyond. Human connection. The standard was never possible. Fuck the standard.
Trans, queer, fat. If the body is so mutable, what else is mutable? Sweet child, so many things. This is what pisses people off.
Do not stop.”