Hidden Glances

Hidden Glances is a series of photographic collages constructed from vintage gay pornographic calendars published between the years when I was beginning to recognize my sexuality as a youth until I came out.

Each collage is an amalgam of two images that originally appeared in the same calendar. One image has the male figure spliced from the scene and placed on top of the second image. Through the negative space of the absent figure, a censured portion of the figure beneath is revealed. The collage is then re-photographed bringing both layers onto the same seamless photographic plane.

These visual devices of compression of space, along with the duality of revealing and concealing, become a metaphor for the numerous years when my gaze upon other men was tentative and fleeting, lest those stolen glimpses expose my silent, secret homosexuality.

The photographs remove the source material from their original intention—that of gratuitous imagery for sexual stimulation. Within the new work I construct new narratives that consider how pornography can be used to inform more reflective conversations about the male body, the coming-out process, and the struggles that so many gay men encounter in this context. The series invites the viewer to reflect upon universal themes of self-acceptance, personal secrets, and perceptions of societal gender norms.