These works honour the beautifully complex, mysterious, magical things that are oysters, and think about them in relationship to queer identity. They think about the force of going inside, revealing an inner truth, the getting in and the pulling apart, the dismantling of layers and masks.

The oyster whose shell fascinates and draws you in, and the insides eaten fill you with some kind of enlivening power, make you feel high. They hold a deep eroticism- brimming wet watery glistening, their consumption is indulgent; the ritual of their preparation, the submission in eating one- head back, slipping down the throat, devoured in one. Mouth to shell like a kiss, the delicate but muscular flesh sliding in- like a communion of tongues.

The oyster’s sex changes to adapt to the needs of the community, their gender is fluid- they have a hyper-awareness to switch, adapt, shift their identity. Its barnacled shell is constructed from pulling calcium from the sea water- pulling like the piecing together a non-heteronormative identity from the histories, signifiers and experiences that surround- constructing this outer layer of strong, tough identity.

Just like butch identity, the shell is hard and full of sharp edges, complex and intricate, but houses this inner tenderness, this fragile, soft, watery inside that resists letting you in- you have to find the right spot and prize it open with force to reveal.