Philippine-born, American artist, OLIVER MATEO immigrated to the U.S. in 1980.  Raised as U.S. military dependent, OLIVER’S work is informed and influenced by periodic experiences of living with and occupying spaces with/in hyper-gendered environments.  These locales, in close proximity with "foreign" cultures, facilitate spaces for negotiations between language and ways of being that are repeatedly self-monitored, scrutinized, redacted, supplanted, supplemented, then reintroduced. Complicating these cyclical patterns and ultimately reconstituting the encounters through visual and performative mediums, processes, and practices, they create realms where altered objects, personas, and characters rebelliously exist and flourish outside and beyond the bounds of the norm.