I’m Abz Cameron (they/them), a multidisciplinary artist, actor, drag performer, and teaching artist based in Omaha, Nebraska. As a queer and neurodiverse artist, creating has always been one of the main ways I understand myself and connect with other people. My work lives somewhere between visual art, performance, and community storytelling and comes from the questions I have asked myself repeatedly: who am I, and who are we when we actually let ourselves be seen?
I move between charcoal portraiture, collage, digital design, immersive installations, theatre, drag, and textile work, often mixing mediums. Storytelling is the thread that ties it all together. I believe everyone carries countless stories, and when we share them creatively, even in small ways, it reminds us we are not as alone as we think.
My understanding of gender has grown alongside my art. Gender-affirming care, for me, has been mostly social, creative, and internal. In 2020 I started going by Abz and using they/them pronouns simply because it felt right. Growing up, I never fully felt like a girl, but I did not feel like a boy either. Theatre became my first permission slip. Trying on characters and emotions showed me that identity did not have to be singular or permanent. I learned to feel comfortable in ambiguity, to hold contradiction without needing to solve it. Not boy, not girl. Just Abz.
Drag became a turning point for me. It was a brilliant and dramatic gender experiment that introduced me to my drag persona, Venus Thightrapp, a hyper-femme, punk, and powerful side of myself that ultimately brought me closer to who I am. Drag gave me confidence that carried into everyday life. I began wearing more ambiguous clothing, expressing myself more authentically, and finding my people in the community.
Whether I’m onstage in drag, leading a workshop, or chasing some other creative side quest, my work usually comes back to the same place. I want people to see themselves a little more clearly and feel a little more permission to exist as they are. I’m not interested in making things perfect. I care more about making things that feel real and human. At the end of the day, my art is about offering permission: permission to play, to feel, to take up space, and sometimes to discover something new about yourself along the way.
