During this research project, I have moved from primarily making figurative paintings of myself to making installations and objects that offer spaces of encounter and experience. I draw on embodied experiences to produce self-portraits that articulate ways of doing personhood outside of prescriptive categories. My studio research extends on and expands traditional self-portraiture by using abstracted modes to convey an embodied understanding of self as ongoing and changing experience. Extending on the idea that minimalist abstract sculpture requires a viewer’s bodily engagement, I have experimented with artwork installation to invite heightened experiences of self in space. The aim of my studio practice is to orchestrate encounters with artworks that encourage viewers to reconsider ways of experiencing their selves and bodies. This thesis contextualises and develops ideas integral to my studio practice: rhizomic thought, representations of gender, minimalist abstraction, and self-portraiture. This thesis begins by considering how rhizomic and binary ways of thinking influence understandings of gender and personhood. I refer to Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s theory of rhizomic thought, of which multiplicity is a key characteristic. Rhizomic multiplicity suggests alternate ways of thinking about gender that are integral to my project. I consider that feminist philosopher and physicist Karen Barad’s notion of ‘dynamic specificity’—which suggests both change and a particularity of beings and context—provides a robust framework for conceptualising gender and experiences of personhood. [...]