The Divinity in Gender and Creation

When you first meet someone, your eyes naturally meet their gaze. But when I first met Avrae, my eyes went straight to his fingers: bejeweled to the nth degree in silver, catching stray fragments of Captain Fatty’s fluorescent lighting. That coupled with his long locks, cloaked garb, and sprawling hand-poked tattoos, was enough to convince me I was grabbing a beer with a wizard from another astral plane.

I wasn’t too far off, except that Avrae has lived amongst us on our plane—Santa Barbara—for his entire life, attending Santa Barbara High School’s VADA program and completing two degrees in art at Santa Barbara City College. He now works at SBCC as a model in the figure drawing department. 

Avrae is no one-trick magician. With his AUDHD brain (the conjunction of autism and ADHD), his artistry toggles between jewelry making, oil painting, and recording music. 

Jewelry making grounds Avrae in his body, as handcrafting allows his busy mind to rest. Working with gems also connects him to his spirituality, which looks like a blend of paganism, witchcraft, and manifestation work. His favorite stone is labradorite – the color of a fluorescent oil spill under a cloudless sky and a strong stone for spirit work.

In his oil paintings, Avrae expands on the complex intersection of gender and religion. “As a transgender ex-catholic, I am drawn to demonic imagery and Lucifer. I was fundamentally misunderstood and made a choice to ‘fall,”’ even if it meant forsaking the church, the same way Lucifer fell for questioning god.” Avrae transfigures demons into symbols of “self-found beauty and transformation, through [one’s] own eyes and no one else’s.” 

Having no societal framework for how to present, transgender and non-binary people are free to play with unbound expression. To Avrae, gender expression is “the closest humans get to godliness.” “I feel close to God through the act of transitioning because I have a hand in my own creation.”

Outside of demons, Ronny, Avrae’s partner of five years, is his muse. In a warm portrait, Avrae portrays Ronny as both the sun and a smiling angel. When I commented on Avrae’s clear Vincent Van Gogh influence, we discovered our shared admiration for Theo: Van Gogh’s art dealer and supportive younger brother. “None of Van Gogh’s work would have been shared without the human connection between him and Theo,” Avrae noted.

“Human connection as a way to make and show art is important to me,” he continued, “Nobody creates anything within a bubble. Everything is influenced by everything else. You can’t tell what is going on in someone’s mind until they show you, and art is the best way to show people that.” 

“Everyone should be making art,” Avrae claimed, thinking that placing a value judgement on art – labelling it good or bad – defeats its purpose. “You’re allowed to make ‘bad art.’ It limits so many people [from creating] because they don’t want to make something bad – NO! Make something that’s ‘bad’! It came from you!” 

Avrae’s music is a testament to his commitment to “break out of [his] own perfectionism” and create for the sake of creation. He keeps it simple, plugging his headphones straight into his phone and using the free app BandLab to create an unapologetically unpolished sound under the alias “devilboy.”

In 2021, Avrae released Shadow Work, which means to address and care for our inner darkness in divination terms. Taking inspiration from Imogen Heap, Avrae layers acoustic guitar with harrowing voices, singing about the kind of loneliness we feel in solitude at night. In “I’m Not Sorry Is That Evil?,” he sings in a choked voice: “Am I really sorry when I say I’m sorry / Cause I’m not sorry for being alive.”

Avrae continues to release music, coming out with “special” in the summer of 2024. Undoubtedly, Avrae is able to channel a raw honesty through every medium he works in. As the United States enters a new administration bent on suppressing LGBTQIA+ expression, it is imperative to uplift voices like Avrae’s and celebrate their successes in the face of adversity. 

You can find Avrae’s music on Instagram at @devilboytunes and Spotify by searching “devilboy.” His visual art can be found at @avraeart on Instagram as well.