These portraits are a fantastical exploration into gender and sexuality:
How does it feel to have your work in a public space and have people reflect on it communally?was so kind and welcoming to the work. In the past seven years, my life has been such an up-and-down roller coaster, and sometimes, it felt like I was working in the dark — kind of blind and not really sure where it’s going to go. So, I’ve just been following my heart in making it, to see it presented and know that there was a place for it to live was really affirming.
For me, self-portraits are kind of inescapable. I don’t necessarily think of my work in the category of “,” and sometimes, I wouldn’t want them to be described that way. I’m included in them, but I also feel like I’m a part of a group even when I’m alone. The language around photography can be so rigid, and when I read about it, it feels outdated — like, it’s almost taboo in art photography to bring up that photography is now so accessible to everyone.
Totally. My friend Bobbi said it really well; they said that people use the language of mourning in relation to their, and I think about that term and the language of mourning so much — especially in photography. I’ve always tried to revolve around this idea of joy, but more so in this body of work, I think our own self is the only thing we can really speak the truth about, and everything else is just a wild guess. In making this work, that was really the point.
That’s a really beautiful way to put it. You’re giving photography a chance to play around with presentation and lean into what some people would view as opposites or contradictions within yourself in a really holistic and joyful manner — these binaries we’ve conditioned ourselves to follow don’t have to exist. I’m thinking specifically of the photograph you took of [artist and