Hidden Glances is a series of photographs made from vintage gay pornography calendars published when I was beginning to recognize my sexuality as a youth until I came out in 2000. Before then, I skirted mention of my sexuality by hiding behind my studies, feigning interest in girls, and making failed attempts to fit in with the rest of the boys.
Calendars chronicle and mark time. In this work, they represent the long period in my life when others assumed I was straight, or I was told that being gay was wrong. Ironically, the men in these calendars portray sexualized heterosexual archetypes that many in the gay community have appropriated.These "manly" men that society was trying to train me to become ultimately became the men I longed to look at and galvanized my true identity.
Each image is made by hand cutting a figure from his scene, layering him over another month’s image, and then re-photographing the new composition. By eliminating the presence of exposed skin in the top layer, one muscular silhouette becomes a window that both reveals and conceals to create tension between the two layers. Ultimately through the lack of depth, I am creating visual compressions of all those years when I wanted to look at other guys and could only risk taking quick glimpses because I was afraid that my gaze would linger too long and expose my homosexuality.
Whether ultimately shown as a book, or framed and hanging on a wall, the work is designed to live in a more public space that invites the viewer to connect to the idea of their own personal secrets, and experience the internal conflict and ultimate resolution that one feels once finally sharing their story.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Over the past several years my mother’s memory has been deteriorating rapidly. Witnessing first-hand how she retells stories, I have begun to question my own memory and how I make sense of the past. Science has proven that in general memories are malleable and confabulation–the construction of false memories through the use of repeating stories that seem plausible in someone’s life–can alter memory. Knowing how subjective our minds are, I respond by using my own photographs along with appropriated images to reconstruct real and imagined histories to investigate personal and public identities. Although my training in photography is rooted in the theories of documentary photography, as an artist I recognize that my identity, experiences, and perceptions are inextricably linked to how I interpret the world and create images.
I am drawn to how one’s history and identity are shaped while remaining aware that these are my interpretations and that the world as I see it is my reality, and that reality as a whole is relative and unique to all. My work has taken me from rural Kentucky to understand my partner’s past in a once prosperous land of coal mining to my current body of work where I repurpose gay pornographic calendars to trace my own period of life in the closet. Nevertheless, through my images, I strive to create connections and share feelings, perceptions, and emotions.
For my current work Hidden Glances, I use vintage gay calendars to visualize my internal conflicts prior to coming out. Because they were designed for a broader gay community, the men in these calendars portray sexualized heterosexual archetypes that many in the gay community have fetishized. I hand cut figures from their scenes, layer them over another month’s image, and then re-photographing the new compositions, creating visual compressions of the years when I wanted to look at other guys. Through this work, I express a new understanding of my history; despite my own unique experiences, there exist collective stories, internal conflicts, and emotions that unite us all.