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Photo installation, Mercury 20 Gallery, Oakland, California, 2014.
Framed digital C-prints
Most of my work as an artist has involved an engagement with beauty, frequently looking at subject matter given little prior aesthetic attention. A Bouquet of Bears & A Dozen Little Roses is a large-scale photographic floral arrangement, focused on a particular little survivor from another century that is an often overlooked part of the urban landscape of San Francisco, the Cecile Brunner rose.
Alongside these rose images are large-scale photographic grids that resemble floral forms, but are comprised of close-up images of big hairy bodies. The works pay homage to Busby Berkeley’s dazzling kaleidoscopic musical production numbers from the 1930s. Instead of the legs of Berkeley’s showgirls, bearded necks and furry legs are offered as sources of aesthetic and sensual pleasure.
Inspired by the eroticization and fetishization of large hairy men within the gay community, these works abstract and celebrate an ideal of beauty quite outside of the mainstream. The project playfully subverts the genre of flower photography and redirects our gaze onto a different type of body.
A Bouquet of Bears & A Dozen Little Roses
Installation view, l-r: A Dozen Little Roses (1 & 2), chromogenic development prints, 30" x 45" each; Sepals, Petals, Lip & Pouch, 4 framed chromogenic development prints, 61" x 61" installed
A Bouquet of Bears & A Dozen Little Roses
A Dozen Little Roses (#2), chromogenic development print, 30" x 45"
A Bouquet of Bears & A Dozen Little Roses
Installation view, l-r: Sepals, Petals, Lip & Pouch; Rosy-Fingered Dawn; Bearded Iris; Bud; and Morning Glory; all framed chromogenic development prints, each 61" x 61" installed
A Bouquet of Bears & A Dozen Little Roses
Sepals, Petals, Lip & Pouch, framed chromogenic development prints, 61" x 61" installed
A Bouquet of Bears & A Dozen Little Roses
Rosy-Fingered Dawn, framed chromogenic development prints, 61" x 61" installed
A Bouquet of Bears & A Dozen Little Roses
Installation view, l-r: Bud; and Morning Glory; all framed chromogenic development prints, each 61" x 61" installed
A Bouquet of Bears & A Dozen Little Roses
Installation view, l-r: Bearded Iris, Bud, and Morning Glory, framed chromogenic development prints, each 61" x 61" installed; and A Dozen Little Roses (3, 7 & 9), chromogenic development prints, 30" x 45" each
A Bouquet of Bears & A Dozen Little Roses
A Dozen Little Roses (#3), chromogenic development print, 30" x 45"
A Bouquet of Bears & A Dozen Little Roses
A Dozen Little Roses (#7), chromogenic development print, 30" x 45"
A Bouquet of Bears & A Dozen Little Roses
Installation view, l-r: A Dozen Little Roses (7, 9, 10 & 13), chromogenic development prints, 30" x 45" each
A Bouquet of Bears & A Dozen Little Roses
A Dozen Little Roses (#9), chromogenic development print, 30" x 45"
A Bouquet of Bears & A Dozen Little Roses
A Dozen Little Roses (#10), chromogenic development print, 30" x 45"
A Bouquet of Bears & A Dozen Little Roses
Installation view: Corsage, chromogenic development print, 30" x 30"