Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/1024601
Res On Res's studio wall is a photoshopped collage of Catherine Opie portraits with the people removed, leaving behind backgrounds with only the faintest traces of life. "I don't know why I did it," the photographer admits. "It's not conscious yet." If the motivation isn't conscious, the act of appropriating the work of Opie—a photographer who depicted her queer and BDSM communities from the '90s onward—certainly feels relevant. Res, who recently received their MFA in photography from Yale, plans to utilize their new, generously lit studio space in Bushwick to embark on a series of free-form portraits this fall—a genre the photographer has a productively taut relationship with. "I've always felt resistant to portraiture, formally," Res says. "I think it partly has to do with being queer and the experience of being labeled and reduced." This resistance functions as a site of tension: How does one communicate something as multifaceted as identity when the portraiture game has been historically so rigged against marginalized communities? It is a question that suspends Res's practice in a state of constant investigation. "With the context removed, you are relying on the body alone to communicate an individual's identity. I don't know if it's possible to see somebody in their complexity in the portrait itself. And what about the presence of the photographer? In formal portraiture it's not something we're supposed to think about." As an artist of the new queer vanguard, Res recognizes the strategic positioning of identity in front of and behind the camera. "In my work, I am most interested in the 'me' of my queerness, rather than the 'we' of my queerness. The work seen here explores queerness in the way that most of my work does, in that it is taken directly from my life, and filtered through me. I believe the queer in the work is subtle, but if you are looking for it you can find it—I love leaving things in my work for the people who know to look for them." Res's The Recycling, 2018, communicates queerness in a subtle way, filtered through the artist's life. culturedmag.com 169