Burying Us Like Seeds – Art Opening

Art Opening for Burying Us Like Seeds
Paintings by L. Nichols

This body of work is a collection of paintings, both personal and poetic, alongside memorial portraits of trans lives cut too short due to violence — lives that shouldn’t and won’t be forgotten.

My paintings have always been about finding and building home, and perseverance rooted in connection to something larger than ourselves. They exist in the space between — between grief and joy, between memory and hope, and between different media.

In this show I turned that perspective outward, to the lives of other trans people. I started quietly painting memorial portraits a few years ago. As our lives have become increasingly scrutinized, politicized, and threatened, the need to make more of them and share them has grown. 

In my experience, the heart of being trans is the belief in the possibility of becoming something new, something that grows from what came before while reaching toward what might yet be. Memorializing these too-young trans people, meant living with their faces while not knowing them, yet knowing something of them.

These memorial portraits are not for sale, as I believe no one should profit from another’s death. Instead, they will be held in trust, available for lease through a donation to an organization that supports trans rights, particularly those of BIPOC individuals. Making sure the work is never meant for profit ensures that their purpose will remain unchanged: to witness, to remember, to give back to the community, and to celebrate trans existence.

Even in grief, there is joy in celebrating a life. seeds planted to build a better future.

I hope these paintings serve as seeds for imagining a better future for us all.