Rhys Meatyard is a third-generation queer and trans artist living and working in St. Petersburg, Florida. Raised in a family of artists—metal sculptor and educator Jerry Meatyard, pioneering photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard, and monument designer Laura Meatyard—art was present from the beginning, both as a language and a discipline. Trained at the Pinellas County Center for the Arts at Gibbs High School and later studying fine art and anthropology at Eckerd College, Meatyard spent years working professionally as a graphic designer and illustrator while hesitating to fully claim a personal artistic voice.

That voice emerged later in life, shaped by lived experience rather than legacy alone. After decades marked by hardship, responsibility, and self-erasure, Meatyard began creating and exhibiting work in 2019 following a profound period of self-acceptance and transformation. Since then, their practice has grown rapidly—spanning countless group exhibitions nationwide, multiple awards, participation in the 2023 SHINE Mural Festival, and a first solo exhibition in 2024. Meatyard’s work is deeply personal yet universally resonant, blending technical rigor, empathy, humor, and symbolism to explore survival, identity, and becoming. At its core, their art is an offering of hope: an invitation to honor what we’ve laid to rest in order to live fully as ourselves.