ARTIST STATEMENT
I confront ideologies that preach perfectionism, exclusivity, and shame to initiate outcomes of liberation and connectivity. My work centers the fat queer body as a site of trauma, exploring intersections of healing, access, labor, food, gender, sexuality, and queer utopia. Occupying the potent space between inward and outward confrontation motivates me to publicly investigate my identity as a means to practice the great unlearning of societal standards, reveal self tenderness, and revel in physical prowess. Desire is back on the menu. Permission, granted.
My creative faith is invested in the transformative power of simultaneously generating discomfort and curiosity for my audience. Subversive humor, juxtaposition of scale, queering of traditional art making methods, and good old unapologetic joy are all tactics I employ to dissect harmful narratives and recontextualize toward a utopian future. I did not ask to be this radical -- in all honesty I tried hard for 30 years to assimilate and I still feel grief over that not working out. But, there is such delicious satisfaction in holding the spotlight from the margins. Cultivating vanity is a miraculous thing.
BIO
Veronica Leto (they/them) is a multidisciplinary artist working primarily in printmaking, video, and performance. Their work is unapologetically rebellious and conceptually rooted in their identity as a fat, queer, nonbinary person. They have exhibited nationally, including the Janet Turner Print Museum, Bradbury Art Museum, and The Museum of Contemporary Art Nashville. In 2022, they were awarded the undergraduate student fellowship for Southern Graphics Council International. Veronica received their BFA from Middle Tennessee State University in 2022 and is currently an MFA candidate in printmaking at the University of Iowa with a secondary focus in sculpture and intermedia.
Originally from New Jersey, they have called NYC, Nashville, and now Iowa City home. They often lament about bad bagels. They share a dwelling with their wife and two pups.