The transgender Mexican artist lost their sight to an HIV-related illness – and their art blossomed. As a major exhibition opens in Dundee, they explain their defiance of illness and gender norms
Manuel Solano is remembering trying to paint for the first time after going blind. “I thought it was a joke: I thought it was over for me, as a painter.”
Their work from that period is harsh and urgent, clawed on to the canvas in jangling colour. Solano named the series Blind Transgender with Aids: a bitter joke reflecting their conviction that the work would attract attention only as a curiosity. “These stupid, ugly paintings … it was like giving the finger to the visual, fully abled world.”
