Set in opposition to glowing backdrops of desert, metropolis skylines, skate parks, and nameless interiors, Gerwyn Davies’ vibrant pictures merge trend images with elaborate and generally weird handmade costumes. His observe harkens again to a few of his first experiments with images, when he and a bunch of mates would stage collaborative portraits through which they’d take turns working the digicam, posing, and looking out the home for lamps to mild the scene.
“It was Vogue journal on a B-horror movie funds,” Davies says. “I used to be transfixed by the potential to manufacture fantasy by way of images and from that time I used to be very enthusiastic about what else I might do with it.” He credit these early, playful experiments along with his continued fascination with readymades and a extremely constructed strategy to creating a photograph.
Davies describes his observe as “queer photographic self-representation.” He designs and creates the costumes himself, remodeling the human determine right into a sculptural kind. Typically clothes envelop his complete physique, however even when his legs or arms are seen, the pinnacle is at all times obscured. When he takes the picture, Davies works blind, snapping a sequence of computerized photographs whereas he shortly performs for the digicam. From these, he later selects a last picture.
Whether or not product of sequined material, vinyl, or fake fur, Davies’ costumes border on the quirky, humorous, and even absurd, as he explores the fluid relationship between fantasy and actuality. He additionally performs with notions of what portrait images is—or it’s supposed to disclose in regards to the sitter. On this case, “the topic, which is at all times me, is conspicuous within the body,” the artist says, however the nature of concealment provides a playful, generally barely unsettling layer of complexity. He continues:
Using elaborate costumes, typically fabricated with shimmering and glowing supplies, makes the topic virtually hyper-visible. On the identical time nevertheless, the specifics of the topic are unable to be seen. The face is at all times obstructed by material and the exact dimensions of the determine wildly distort, which means the topic is unimaginable to soak up absolutely…the topic is each there and never there, seen and unseen, they’re hidden in plain sight.
Davies’ work is featured in Publicity: Contemporary Photographers in Australia and New Zealand, and you’ll find extra on his web site and Instagram.
