JAY KULBARDI likens their journey as an artist to discovering their identity as a transgender person.
Despite growing up in a creative environment, they didn’t think being an artist was a possibility.
“Everyone in my family does art and we’re all actually creative,” Kulbardi said.
“But I wasn’t going to do it professionally as my career. I didn’t really think that could be a thing.
“It’s kind of the same with being trans.
“There’s this analogy, if you lived in a cave in the dark your whole life, and then one day there’s a hole in the wall and you can see the outside and it’s full of colors and light.
“It was the same thing, once you discover you can do art and be creative, then you can’t not go back to the hole and look at it and eventually want to go out there.”
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Kulbardi studied a Bachelor of Psychological Science and was planning on completing their masters when their art started to take off.
The career of the indigenous artist began to gain momentum as they created pieces for the Rising festival as well as for the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing.
This year, Kulbardi was commissioned to design the Western Bulldogs’ pride jumper for season 10.
The Bulldogs have been leaders in the LGBTQIA+ space since the first ever Pride Game between the Dogs and Carlton took place in 2018.
For Kulbardi, who grew up supporting the Bulldogs, the opportunity to be involved was like all of their worlds colliding.
“My whole family barracks for Bulldogs, so I applied and I didn’t really think I’d get it,” Kulbardi said.
“I feel super lucky, especially with the Bulldogs and sports in general. A lot of people in queer communities often withdraw from that stuff.
“Just because sometimes it can feel like the (sports) communities aren’t necessarily there for you. So I just thought it was awesome that there’s an opportunity for rainbow people.”
When putting together their design, Kulbardi wanted the jumper to portray how the fluidity of water can be representative of a person’s sexuality.
“I decided to give myself the theme of water,” said Kulbardi.
“I like picking themes and they tend to be an element. I also wanted it to have a connection to the land that the Western Bulldogs represent and because I live and work in Ballarat, there’s Lake Wendouree.
“Then I was trying to represent all the different types of gender identities and sexual orientations because everything’s fluid. It’s not just like you’re either this or that. So that was my broad theme.”
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This will be the first Pride Game that Kulbardi has attended and they look forward to seeing the AFLW team run out in their design.
“I’m going down on Friday and it will be crazy to see. I think it will be wild,” Kulbardi said.
The artist believes having visual representation of the queer community is important not only for those who identify as queer, but also for those who don’t.
“There’s all those slogans, like ‘nothing about us without us’, or ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’ but I think for queer people, that’s how it works,” Kulbardi said.
“I wouldn’t have known that I was trans when I was younger, if I didn’t hear about it or see examples of it.
“I wouldn’t have known that was an option for me and my life would have been a lot sadder.
“So I think just having representation and open invites to things are important, because it can be super isolating being trans.
“Sometimes you don’t know if you’re technically invited or can go, because you don’t know if you’ll be welcomed. So when there’s big events like this, it’s so nice to know we’re actually invited.
“Then on the other hand for people who aren’t queer, it’s a good example because if they don’t see it anywhere, then how do they know how to react to you and actually behave well?
“I think these events are important in normalising things and having things out in the open and supporting people is a good example of what they can do.
“Also, you never know if someone else is going to at some point join the community.”
