Hold Me, Harder emerged from a forced dislocation. An improvised routine, daily drawings of teddy bears, became an extended meditation on an unseen terror of losing one's creative footing and an attempt at personal care. I had lost access to my studio just as I had begun to reclaim it after months of quarantine. Suddenly, I was working at a kitchen table.
 
The drawings themselves are modest, rendered in water-based marker, using a limited palette of yellow and shades of blue. For exhibition, the works were given oversized frames and matted with beveled cutouts, configuring a portal of sorts. Each drawing was purposefully placed off-center, pushed into a corner of its frame. The presentation space was layered with vinyl wall decals depicting India ink drawings recalling children’s storybooks, hinting at a world of mysterious figures, fragmented narrative, and suspended play. A small maquette, a “show-within-a-show,” was propped in a corner on tiny toys. Completing the installation was a text about my grandfather’s death, providing a direct glimpse of grief, the kind that’s unresolved and difficult to give language.
 
Hold Me, Harder staged a queer gesture. It presented edges and margins as the space for resolution. For emotional expression that claims tenderness but requires strength.