"Hidden Glances (2021-present) is a series of photographs I have made of hand-made collages constructed using archival images from vintage gay pornographic calendars published between the late 1980s and 2000."
Those years mirror the time between my own initial and tentative realization of my homosexuality, with all of its complicated fears and desires, and my eventual coming out in my early twenties. Those years, long before the easy availability of online pornography was even an idea, also reflect the power those images held, since they had to be sought out. Such materials could be hard to find and often required purchase in-person, at primarily gay venues, or by mail order, either way refusing the ability to be anonymous. The purchase and possession of these items were their own declaration.
"The tense duality of revealing and concealing, becomes a metaphor for the many years when my own longing gaze upon other men was both direct and fleeting."
Each image is a composite built from two figures that originally appeared in the same calendar. In the top layer, the male body has been excised from his scene leaving behind a (mostly) figureless void. This image is then laid atop a second image from the source material.
Visible through the negative space of the absent body, a censored portion of the body layered underneath is revealed. This construction is then photographed, bringing both layers together onto the same seamless photographic plane.
This tight compression of space, along with the tense duality of revealing and concealing, becomes a metaphor for the many years when my own longing gaze upon other men was both
direct and fleeting, and full of fear that any lingering glance would expose the closely guarded secret of my desire.
Furthermore, the composite photographs remove the source material from their original and highly erotic intention. A new narrative is constructed in which the viewer is invited to consider
how, in the absence of other kinds of sources and images, pornography was used to inform and educate gay men about the realities of their hidden desires and offer, to complex effect, the possibilities of what that desire might look like in the world. I believe these kinds of images still have this function; they can spark deeper conversations about the male body, the coming-out process, and the struggles that so many gay men like me have encountered as we move through larger resonant themes of self-acceptance, shame, fear, and personal secrets.
