about mr.gender
Hi! I'm mr.gender aka Oliver! I've been making "art" since I could finger paint and posting it online since I've had a computer. After cycling through legal names and usernames, I began to build my online persona as mr.gender and develop my artistic style through endlessly studying and practicing american traditional tattoo design and portraiture. I started offering commissions mostly for friends at first, but I began to receive requests from strangers and eventually branched out more professionally by creating merch designs for several drag artists. Offering Tarot readings went similarly, first with friends just for fun, but once I felt more confident in my practice, I was shocked that I was capable of offering accurate readings to strangers with just their names and maybe a picture on a screen.
about the KOTH Tarot deck
During quarantine, I made quick sketch of Bobby Hill as The Fool just for fun, but once I posted it on TikTok, the response was overwhelming. The demand was more than I could have ever dreamed and with absolutely no idea what I was doing, I set out to illustrate and manufacture an entire tarot deck of my own through Kickstarter. The campaign was more successful than I could have imagined, earning a Projects We Love badge and even ending up on their front page, however in true artist's form, I am always my own worst critic. Going in blind on such a huge project and giving myself an unrealistic timeline for a team of people to reach made me see every delay and learning curve as complete failures, resulting in my choice to not reprint the KOTH deck in the future and focus all efforts towards my next deck (which will still be bigger and better than ever, in due time). Now that it's the future, I'm married to the love of my life and I'm a step-dad which means I have a family counting on me, and that far outweighs any artistic ego or fears of "ruining" a second printing through a some hiccups which are always to be expected as an artist without a business degree, especially since I never even finished my art degree. So everyone thank my wife Alice and our child for inspiring me to give this another try, and from me to all of you, thank you for sticking around and continuing to support me in all my harebrained endeavors.
