Pageant Mom is a solo exhibition by Pia Bakala exploring gender, identity, and digital storytelling through painting and sculpture. Using The Sims 4 as a creative framework, Bakala constructs imagined trans and gender-nonconforming family narratives that she translates into theatrical, materially rich works. Drawing on Catholic iconography, horror cinema, and the aesthetics of simulation, the exhibition examines the tension between care and control, fantasy and cruelty. Through elaborate sculptural frames and glitch-inspired imagery, Pageant Mom offers a darkly playful meditation on chosen family, self-invention, and the surreal edges of virtual life.