The Midori Project – Laura Kina

Midori is looking out a bathroom window during the pandemic. Their curly hair is messy. They wear a red hoody. Their face is backlit by a hazy sunset. The room they are in is dark. — **Midori in Pandemic Quarantine**, Acrylic and charcoal on Legion Stonehenge paper,
*22.5” x 30”,* 2023

A teenager is sitting on the edge of a sofa in a living room getting their hair braided by a friend. — **Aaron Braiding Midori’s Hair,** Acrylic on canvas, 24″x18”, 2020,
Commission from the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience,
Seattle, WA.

**Undercut**, Oil on canvas, 30×40”, 2019

**End of Summer**, Oil on canvas, 30×40”, 2017

**Midori’s Bat Mitzvah**, Oil on canvas, 30x 64”, 2018

**Midori’s Brit Bat**, Oil on canvas, 48×36”, 2006

I am a proud parent of a non-binary, queer-identified child named Midori (she/her and they/them). The Midori Project started off unintentionally as occasional portraits of my child but is coalescing to be a body of work that will remain in progress for as long as Midori wishes to be painted. Witnessing Midori’s journey gave me the courage to also come out as queer in 2021.

Midori’s Brit Bat was painted a year after Midori was born and then Gosei (meaning 5^th generation in Japanese) at age 7. These portraits inadvertently captured images of a doubled self and gender dysphoria. End of Summer is a 2017 portrait of Midori at age 12 shortly after they cut their long hair short. I wanted to capture the joy and relief Midori felt after coming out to their close friends and parents as “trans and non-binary” and the moment in which they felt confident in finding their own genderqueer style. The painting features Midori wearing their favorite Keith Haring print t-shirt from Uniqlo. Midori’s Bat Mitzvah was painted in 2018 after they came out publicly during their Jewish coming-of-age ceremony to our entire extended family and circle of friends. Painted in a style inspired by the transmasculine portraits of Romaine Brooks (1874–1970) and self-assured fashion-focused portraits of African Americans by Barkley L. Hendricks (1945-1917), the painting features Midori wearing a baby blue sports coat and pink button-down they selected to echo the trans pride flag color. Undercut was painted in 2019 to pair with End of Summer and complete this triptych of portraits. It focuses on the satisfying feeling of a fresh undercut haircut. Midori is facing away from me now but I have her back as they confidently face a pink/queer horizon. In 2020, the Wing Luke Museum commissioned me to create a painting on the theme of home for their annual fundraiser. It was done right before the pandemic and features a living room scene of Midori’s friend Aaron braiding Midori’s hair. The 2023 painting centers on Midori with a messy bedhead and hoody. Their face is backlit as they stare blankly out the bathroom window at a hazy pandemic sunset.

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