Zach Toppin (1987) is a London based multidisciplinary artist. His work is an investigation, celebration and an honouring of queerness and identity struggle, weaving together stories about emotion, gender, desire, longing, sex and love.

A collaging of his own explorations, and an archiving of those of his queer community and ancestors, he finds through it a way to navigate the dichotomy of trans unease and euphoria. Toppin makes work about the languages of masculinity and queer culture, the external signifiers we use to build our identity fantasies. The use of clothing as not just fabric, but opportunity; as a tool to transcend gender. The fetishization of items, possessions, symbols, relics, the ways we use them in our rituals of existence, in our presentations of who we are, in building internal strength through exterior armours. It thinks about time travel, about secret messages, about building portraits and personal narratives through a series of scrupulously combined items, sends messages of care, communion, struggle, heartbreak. It gives intimate insights into a private trans life.

He/Him

@zachtoppin

Photo by Terna Jogo