about

Embry Valentino O’Leary is a trans, genderf██k individual and interdisciplinary artist from the United States. After a childhood in Chicago, Illinois and young adult years in southern Maine, Embry is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Iowa.As a DIY enthusiast and self-proclaimed deviant, Embry's experimental work weaves together installation, ephemera creation, printmaking, assemblage, and digital media. This practice is fluid and precarious, utilizing maximalist aesthetics, recycled materials, wry text, and found commodities to explore themes of impermanence, instability, pleasure, thrill, pain, identity, desire, and discomfort—aspects of life that are intrinsically linked when inhabiting a trans body and living in queer spaces. Some of Embry's favorite materials, objects, and mediums to use are bed linens, stuffed animals, open source video and photo editing software, tape adhesives, hot glue, rhinestones, and instant cameras.Embry can be contacted by emailing evalentinoart@gmail.com.

artist statement

THINGS. I like things. In fact, I love things. Things and stuff and junk and material. At times, I think I am nothing without my things, all of the knickknacks and broken items that the latent hoarding issues in my DNA are too scared to let go of. My world is made up of toys, clothes, paper scraps, bed linens and sentimental ephemera, and defined by the spaces I grew up in. Unrestricted and unmoored due to neglect and confusion in formative years, I found solace and excitement in spaces that weren’t for me. I was far too young to be exploring the forbidden delights of the world wide web in the early 2000’s, but in my defense, the online deviants and misfits in subculture spaces were the only role models I had. I have a passion for perversion and an acute awareness of how easily a mind is warped, for better or worse. And I am also acutely aware that what may be “better” for me is “worse” for someone else–especially when it comes to anything queer, anything odd, anything painful.Let me be clear: I do not seek to besmirch memories, nor am I pretentious enough to act like I am above the materialistic influences of my art. “Ruining childhoods” is trite. Though I may be cynical, often infusing a dry, dark humor and irony into my work, I must insist that everything I do is from a place of passion. I would say “love,” because it sounds cute, but really, that ignores all of the pain, anger, and fear that I honor in my work. Subversion without passion is no better than the shallow gimmicks we are fed from pop culture. Oh, wow, another commentary on corporate greed where we take a beloved cartoon character and twist them into something nasty, something pornographic, something obscene. Shock content is not invalid, but it sure is hard to pull off with integrity. When it comes to subversion, we need to consider the motive. What pushes me to speak of innocence and inappropriateness in the same breath? What compels me to grapple with discomfort and vulnerability, to be so uncouth and scrappy? To put stickers on razorblades, clean up blood with a security blanket, and burn my fingertips on a hot glue gun?My art is fragile. At times, it hurts to display it, because I am fragile, too. Showing my art is akin to slicing open my chest, cracking open my ribs, and letting my guts spill out onto the floor, pink and messy, slick with blood and mucus. It’s hard, painful work for something that ends up so… icky. But healing isn’t pretty, neither is growing and maturing. We don’t talk about the in-between spaces enough, the precarious and disgusting transitions between one stage and another, one life and another. We don’t talk about lying about your age to see 18+ websites; we don’t see the goo of genetic material that the caterpillar melts down into as it metamorphosizes in its chrysalis. When we get older, our love of childish things and whimsy is only permitted with a veil of irony. I have grown-up feelings about my childhood. They retroactively feed the 14-year-old girl who still lives in my heart, giving her permission to feel rage and to destroy her surroundings, to be aroused and unashamed of how her heart pounds while watching music videos and horror movies. I console my past lives to root myself in the current one, learning to be brave and claim the space that I’d been denied for so long. I search for many things in my art. Validation, permission, self-actualization. Affirmation of my life and love, my anxieties and mortality. I search for the sublime in the sleaze that I surround myself with. I search for things to rescue and love, to break, to reconfigure.My art asks: Are you brave enough to like something?

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solo exhibitions

2025 Vanity of Vanities, All is Vanity - Ana Mendieta Gallery, Iowa City, IA.2022 bedroom 1: exhibitionism (2022) Hallway Gallery, South Hadley, MA.2022 bedroom 2: fantasy (2022) A.P.E. Gallery, Northampton, MA.

group exhibitions and performances

2025 "Scroll: A Cause to Move" - threadbear (2025), Drewelowe Gallery, Iowa City, IA.2025 "Terrible Twos" - YES IT'S PAINFUL BUT I'M ONLY JUST GETTING STARTED (Hope and Millennium) (2025), Drewelowe Gallery, Iowa City, IA.2025 "HOWL: The Art of Dogs" - BACKED INTO CORNERS (2025), Wild Heart Gallery, Virtual; Coachella Valley-based.2024 "LIGHTSWITCH: Nine People Who Make Art" - IMAGO=IMMORTAL (2024), Drewelowe Gallery, Iowa City, IA.2024 "Re-Registered: A Show by the Iowa Print Group" - John (Patron Saint of Trash) (2024). Ana Mendieta Gallery, Iowa City, IA.2023 "in this context" - perversion 2: GET BEHIND ME, FREAKS (2023) Blanchard Gallery, South Hadley, MA.2022 "Artificial Gems" - MOLT (2022) Hallway Gallery, South Hadley, MA2020 "Boundaries: An Online Exhibition" – Dead and Buried. (2020) Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA.

awards

2025 Artivism Award - HOWL: The Art of Dogs - BACKED INTO CORNERS (2025), Wild Heart Gallery, Virtual Exhibition.2024-2025 Joseph Skinner Fellowship for Alums in Art Studio, Mount Holyoke College. South Hadley, MA.2023 Five College Prose and Poetry Prize Winner. Amherst, MA.2020-2023 Frances Perkins Scholarship, Mount Holyoke College. South Hadley, MA.

education

2024-Current MFA Candidate
University of Iowa, Iowa.
Sculpture and Intermedia.2023 Bachelor of Arts, Magna Cum Laude.
Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts.
Studio Art and English studies.

professional experience

2024-CurrentGraduate Teaching Assistant / Instructor of Record in Intermedia; University of Iowa. Iowa City, IA.2021-2023Art Director, Illustrator, Designer, Shipment Fulfillment; LUPERCALIApress. Longmeadow, Massachusetts.Previous experience also includes time spent as a print studio technician, community art workshop leader, and freelance illustrator.

publications

2023 The Mount Holyoke Review, Issue 04 — #academicgoals poem; SHED (2018), SKIN (2021) and SHAVE (2021)2023 Laurel Moon, Spring 2023 Edition — wrapping paper (2020) and don't vape either (2019)2023 Beyond Queer Words - A Collection of Poems – bedroom 1: exhibitionism (2021) and suture series - dissolving (2023)2021 Mount Holyoke Review, Issue 02 – plastic spring (2021) and sunrise pulse (2021)

threadbear (2025)

Mixed Media InstallationDimensions vary (based on how high-strung it is)Stuffed animal of indeterminate species, laser prints on copy paper, foil, acrylic paint, tinsel garland, glue, hand towel, plastic sheet, pill bottles, rhinestones, thread.

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IMAGO=IMMORTAL (2024)

Mixed Media InstallationLarge wall mount: 38.5 in. x 38 in.
Medium frame: 20.5 in. x 10 in.
Small frames: 11 in. x 8.5 in. eachCardboard, masking tape, steel wire, cellophane, hot glue, acrylic beads, acrylic garlands, acrylic rhinestones, scrapbook paper, wrapping paper, fishing line, reflective mylar, plastic spiders, exhausted glow sticks, hormone vials, syringes, needles.Fragile, trashed materials once suited to adorning birthday presents and securing shipping crates twist and stick together to showcase the final stage of metamorphosis: the fully realized adult butterfly. Framed in perpetuity with careful hands or immobilized for a spider's meal, these creatures have become treasures that showcase both everlasting life and death without an end.

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Mourning Hoard (2024)

Mixed Media and Found Object Installation, Zine.
Room size approx. 15 x 12 ft.A funeral for temporary embodiment. Visitors were welcomed to crack a glowstick into the coffin as an offering, take a zine, and sign the guestbook.

Zine PDF - Printable, Legal Size

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bedroom 1: exhibitionism (2022)

Mixed Media and Found Object Installation
Dimensions variableA section of an intimate space, able to be rearranged and grafted onto any public wall. Deeply personal objects taken from the artist’s own bedroom are used to both invite and challenge a voyeuristic gaze. The viewer and artist share a line of sight focused on an empty bottle of mood stabilizer pills, yet the artist meets the viewer’s eye when it moves to rest on an empty testosterone vial suspended next to a lacy bra and white handkerchief. The arrangement of various items and pulling of sight begs further questioning: What messes are usually shoved into the closet and under the rug? What messes does one allow others to see?

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bedroom 2: fantasy (2022)

Mixed Media and Found Object Installation
Dimensions variableAn instance of a continued exploration of versatile material goods and inhabiting personal space. Nearly every piece used has already lived a previous life, whether that is in a bedroom, the thrift store, or in the depths of a hoarder's dusty basement. For now, they live here: straddling the line between installation and ephemera, suspended in this snapshot of performative gender, sexuality, and health. "bedroom 2: fantasy" welcomes viewers to engage with an intimate representation of identity and instability through voyeuristic gazes, perverse fascination, and the desire to touch.

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perversion 1: IN SECURITY (2021)

Nylon Rope Installation
Dimensions variableIn the foot traffic of a busy sidewalk, an individual’s anxiety is on full display. The distressed mind, the queer body, the connections or disconnections between the self and the environment— elements that would preferably be kept locked behind a bedroom door are forced into the public eye. Treading the same path every day becomes a ritual. There is a sense of comfort in repetition and binding oneself to an exact routine. “perversion 1: IN SECURITY” is an intimate spectacle that explores a need to find sanity and safety. This unassuming but peculiar tree, a landmark to some, attempts to keep itself enveloped in security. The decorative restraints are tangled and desperately arranged in some places. The tight knots are vulnerable to weather, scissors, and dexterous hands— this sensual bondage is a temporary solution to a persistent dread.

perversion 2: GET BEHIND ME, FREAKS (2023)

Mixed Media Installation
Dimensions variableLoud, messy statements from one trans person to many others. perversion 2: GET BEHIND ME, FREAKS grabs attention with crass, cheeky messages written on notecards and construction paper, then asks skeptical viewers to put aside their distaste for one fucking minute because we are all under attack!!!Individuals who are kind, weird, curious, and unapologetically alive get glittery stickers. People who hate their own kind get unfriendly reminders that the status quo wants us all dead.

Text on black paper reads:"Transphobes do not care how much dysphoria you have. Transphobes do not care how well you pass. Transphobes do not care if you have "always known." Transphobes do not care how many surgeries you've had. Transphobes do not care how much you hate the sex you were assigned at birth. Transphobes will not care about the amount of cringe compilations you've made. Transphobes will not care that you're not "one of THOSE" trans folks. Transphobes will not care if you are pretty. Transphobes will not care about the amount of hours you've clocked in on punching down. Transphobes do not care that you fit the trauma porn narrative of being trans. Transphobes do not care about your atrophied vagina, your botched augmentations, your pain from going so long without compassion and proper medical care. Be fucking grateful and kind towards the leaps we've made with trans rights. We are all freak perverts in the eyes of transphobes. Learn to live alongside "tucutes" "posers" "LARPers" "cringe" fake" "will never pass" "non-dysphoric" "non-op" trans people or DIE begging for cis acceptance."

REPAIRS (2021)

5.5 x 8.5 as laser print booklet, or PDF.
Printed edition of 6.16-page magazine exploring the artist’s physical condition. A warped rumination on gender dysphoria, mental illness and neurological disorders, skin conditions, hormone replacement therapy, self-medication, and the art of repairing oneself through surgery, cosmetics, and smartphone technology. Distributed digitally and physically.

Digital PDF

windows (2021)

Mixed media and relief print.5 x 5 in. each.Imitating the appearance of X-ray images, this series of frames grants permission to peek into bodily spaces and fabricated health. Past the neon exterior, hidden in plain view, are inflamed lungs, a rhinestone heart, broken teeth, and a knee held together with pins.

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eye exam (2021)

Animated GIFs, HTML, text.An unqualified instructor walks participants through an eye exam. Along the way, the participant is asked to question what they see, suggesting that one's sense of sight is not inherently a sense of understanding.

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assorted prints

Various print works, 2018-2025

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assorted digital

Various digital assemblage pieces, 2018-2024.

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