Pronounced gen-der shred-der, we're a skatewear and screenprinting studio based just outside of Portland, OR. GNDR SHREDR is the creation of Alex Gray, a local queer graphic designer, illustrator, and screenprinter, who aims to weave their passion for community into every creation.
Alex incorporates personal experiences and community support through their art, aiming to spark conversations about identity, personal expression and reflection. Their practice is influenced largely by expressionism, and a multimedia based approach weaving digital illustration, photography, and fine art into experimental prints.
GNDR SHREDR about challenging expectations, and invites skaters of all sizes, skill levels, and identities to join a movement that celebrates authenticity.
The GNDR SHREDR Story
In Alex's Words
I started quad skating at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, when I was still living in Austin, TX, and it quickly became not only my main source of exercise, but a thriving and abundant source of community connection. The in-person skate community I found in Austin, TX, and the friends I regularly skated with, were the first people in my life, besides immediate family and best friends, who I told that I was trans and asked to use a different name. They accepted me without a second thought. This was truly my first experience with a primarily queer community in real life, people who I could be myself around and skate with and who expressed themselves to me authentically too.
After I graduated with a design degree in 2021, and being a few months into my gender transition, I said goodbye to all the friends I made in Texas and made the move to Oregon with my partner. I got a full time salaried design position in Portland, the thing a kid like me growing up without money dreamed about. However, not all work environments are fit for all people.
I came up with the idea for GNDR SHREDR while stuck in a transphobic, corporate workplace. As an artist at heart, the corporate design work was soul-sucking. As a trans non-binary and queer person, constantly being misgendered and othered in the office was unbearable. The only source of inspiration and lightness during that time was my lunch hour; as it had become quickly obvious I couldn't emotionally handle staying long-term, I focused all of my down time on updating my portfolio for the inevitable job-hunt.
The most common exercise you'll see in a design portfolio, that I and most other designers were taught in school, are case studies. We find or create a fictional business or product, and act as freelancers, the client being our own portfolio. This type of portfolio exercise was the garden-bed for the seeds of GNDR SHREDR.
When imaging a dream brand, I wanted to create something that would be for people like me, for the community that expanded my life and helped me access the courage to live my truth. I imagined skatewear, not for the white male cishet skateboarders, but for the queer quad skaters. What started as a branding exercise, fleshing out a fictional brand, putting together a case study and creating potential designs for shirts, turned into the only work my heart was actually in.
I can't pin down the exact moment that I decided it was worth pursuing; but one week in February 2022, after less than 6 months at my full time corporate position, I had a mental breakdown. I have OCD, which is now largely managed by medication, grounding exercises, and a deeper understanding of what intrusive thoughts are, but back then, the misgendering and the anxiety being in office (among people who not only didn't understand me, but no longer masked) had taken my OCD to extreme levels. Within two weeks, I had quit, and focused all of my time into making GNDR SHREDR a reality.
Now I'm incredibly lucky to have a physical print space for GNDR SHREDR, located inside of a trans-owned skatepark. The people I've met in Portland, through skating, markets, and creative events, continue be the fertilizer for GNDR SHREDR that's enabled the growth to where it is today. I literally couldn't have made it here without my community, and I wouldn't want to be here without y'all. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
Alex Gray / Sole Proprietor of GNDR SHREDR
