Since this realization, it’s sort of felt like an exciting duty of mine to contribute to this history. “I didn’t know about other instances of struggle like mine, whose stories and examples might have strengthened, comforted, and inspired me. “Until moving here, I had no knowledge of the many people before me, like me, who had resisted and transformed the world for people like me,” Chiasson said. In 2017, after completing a Health Promotion and Psychology degree from the University of Texas, Austin, Chiasson made a sudden career shift and moved to New York to pursue an MFA at the New York Academy of Art. Chiasson’s sculptural paintings feature her woodwork. “I knew that I felt differently from a very young age, but even as I got older, there was no one and nowhere for me to turn to in trying to understand myself and what I was feeling,” Chiasson told Hyperallergic, adding that she didn’t see queerness represented in books or on TV, and there was little discussion of it outside of demeaning joke s. Growing up in Port Neches, Chiasson said, she didn’t know many openly gay people.
Chloe Chiasson, “The Eyes of Texas” (2022), oil, foam, canvas on shaped panel, 101 x 128 x 6 inches