Andy (they/them) is a nonbinary, queer artist from rural Appalachia and based in Western Massachusetts. They roleplay with concepts of transformation and transcendence embedded in corporeality and spirituality. Their artworks challenge perceptions that the unknown or unusual, historically deemed the queer, is evil. Šlemenda rehabilitates these queer-coded representations through site-specific events and sculptures. Šlemenda’s artworks have been exhibited throughout the United States, France, Germany, Turkey and Canada. They received their MFA from New York University Steinhardt and were a Sorbonne-Panthéon Université 1 postgraduate fellow. They have instructed courses on contemporary art theory and studio art at Carnegie Mellon University and NYU. Their work has been included in Viola Kolarov’s On Reading Walter Benjamin as Pure Medium, in conversation with Katherine Sperber in Strange Fire Collective and with Nüans Nüans for Revolver Publishing. They have also organized experimental exhibitions for leading artists and institutions such as Pierre Huyghe, Matthew Barney and Mass MoCA.