Knock Before Entering 

Installation View

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In this body of work, Parrish plays with candid photos taken growing up in North Carolina about a decade ago, which feature her younger self and peers dressing up in flourescent prom dresses and in drag. Parrish became fascinated with these images and memories as markers of young femininity (and unknowing) queerness. This series is a visual interpretation of the question: “When did you know (you were queer)?” Working first with individual figures clad in prom dresses in Mo, Tu, We, Th, and Fr, she spent careful time remembering and re-creating these moments with soft backgrounds and bright colors. In When did you know?, she pushed these memories to their limits, painting the figures of her younger self, close friend and brother. Piecing together figures from over two hundred reference images, this overwhelming montage of memory and adolescence anxiously reconstructs an identity. Finally, in Bella and Caps for Sale, the figures become nearly invisible. Lost in the fields of paint, Parrish considers an invisibility unique to the femme queer experience.

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