Photo installation. Selections from series shown at the following venues: Patricia Sweetow Gallery, San Francisco, 2000; Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, 2001.
Framed gelatin silver prints
For the past few years, I have been photographing the hairy male body very close-up, and then reassembling the images in large abstract arrays. I’ve been very interested in a segment of the gay community called the "bear community" that exalts the physical characteristics of bears--lots of body hair and big tummies. The movement presents an ideal of beauty quite outside of the mainstream. By exploring my own desire, I invite the viewer to share my fascination and to subvert with me, if only for a moment, received ideas of beauty.
I’m interested less in straightforward portraiture than in creating a sensory experience of my subjects. The fragmented body is my building block. The body is kaleidoscopic--each pattern offers a kind of access. But what is revealed? Sometimes you can’t tell—it’s just skin and hair, rather derelict, even scary. Sometimes the body becomes as formal as a French garden. Sometimes a work conveys the obsession/intimacy of a lover. After all, who else looks so closely?
The component images of each work are hung an inch apart from each other to create tension and to invite relation to individual photographs as well as to the overall image.
Harem
The late great photocollagist John O’Reilly and his partner, sculptor James Tellin, visit my exhibition in Boston, February 2001. Background: Nape, 2000.
Harem
Nape, 2000
12 framed gelatin silver prints (15" x 15" each), hung one inch apart from each other, 51.5" x 69" installed
Harem
Pelt, 2000
12 framed gelatin silver prints (15" x 15" each), hung one inch apart from each other, 51.5" x 69" installed
Harem
Odalisque, 2000
12 framed gelatin silver prints (15" x 15" each), hung one inch apart from each other, 51.5" x 69" installed
Harem
Symplegades, 2001
12 framed gelatin silver prints (15" x 15" each), hung one inch apart from each other, 51.5" x 69" installed
Harem
Whoopie! 2001
16 framed gelatin silver prints (15" x 15" each), hung one inch apart from each other, 69" x 69" installed
Harem
Sweetheart, 1999
36 framed gelatin silver prints (7" x 7" each), hung one inch apart from each other, 59" x 59" installed
Harem
Turner, 1999
36 framed gelatin silver prints (7" x 7" each), hung one inch apart from each other, 59" x 59" installed
Harem
Milky Way, 1999
36 framed gelatin silver prints (7" x 7" each), hung one inch apart from each other, 59" x 59" installed
Harem
Starry Night, 2003
6 framed gelatin silver prints (15" x 15" each), hung one inch apart from each other, 33" x 51.5" installed
Harem
untitled (Apollo 18), 2015
7 framed digital C-prints, hung one inch apart from each other, 79" x 38" installed
Harem
Swell, 2003
12 framed gelatin silver prints (15" x 15" each), hung one inch apart from each other, 51.5" x 69" installed
Harem
Beanstalk, 2000.
8 framed type-R prints (19" x 19" each), hung vertically, one inch apart from each other, 153" x 19" installed
Harem
untitled (#1), 2000
4 images, each 2.25" x 2.25" printed on one gelatin silver paper, 11" x 11" framed
Harem
untitled (#2), 2000
4 images, each 2.25" x 2.25" printed on one gelatin silver paper, 11" x 11" framed
Harem
untitled (#3), 2000
4 images, each 2.25" x 2.25" printed on one gelatin silver paper, 11" x 11" framed
Harem
untitled (#4), 2000
4 images, each 2.25" x 2.25" printed on one gelatin silver paper, 11" x 11" framed
Harem
untitled (#5), 2000
4 images, each 2.25" x 2.25" printed on one gelatin silver paper, 11" x 11" framed
Harem
untitled (#6), 2000
4 images, each 2.25" x 2.25" printed on one gelatin silver paper, 11" x 11" framed
Harem
untitled (#8), 2000
4 images, each 2.25" x 2.25" printed on one gelatin silver paper, 11" x 11" framed
Harem
untitled (#9), 2000
4 images, each 2.25" x 2.25" printed on one gelatin silver paper, 11" x 11" framed
Harem
untitled (#11), 2000
4 images, each 2.25" x 2.25" printed on one gelatin silver paper, 11" x 11" framed
Harem
untitled (#10), 2000
4 images, each 2.25" x 2.25" printed on one gelatin silver paper, 11" x 11" framed
