Artist Statement
Queer Fictions
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My Queer Fiction projects are focused on confronting viewers with issues surrounding the fashioning of gender and heteronormativity, through the use of masquerade and drag. Images that at first seem to fit neatly within narratives of normative gender and (sometimes hetero)sexuality are in fact subversions of these narratives. In Alone Time, the viewer will recognize that each couple is made up of only one model; while in Switch, close examination reveals that each pair of couples is comprised not of four models, but two. Models who take on multiple, often polarized, gender roles are a defining characteristic of my Queer Fictions. In my gay cruising narrative, One Night Stand, the two male characters are portrayed by female-assigned and identified models. This addresses contrasting, similarly oppressive issues surrounding visual representation of fetishized lesbian bodies in the media, and ever-present stigmatization of gay male sex and sexuality. This work is intended to raise questions about sexuality, gender fluidity, identity, sex, and the body through nudity and loaded sexual gesture.
Unlike normative prescriptions of gender roles as biologically determined, the Queer Fictions portray these dynamics as malleable and subject to change according to dress and subtle mannerisms. This body of work also exposes the psychological relationship that is performed within each couple through gendered dynamics. While such dynamics are clearly staged, the polarized identities represented in the photograph reveal the different facets of each subject and how they interact with one another. My intention is to problematize preconceived notions regarding sex, gender, and the body. In addition to complicating the identities of my subjects whose "true" genders are never disclosed, it also addresses my own queer identity. These series call attention to the existence (or lack) of gender roles within my queer community and within my own sexual relationships. Because Queer Fictions provides an introspective reflection of my fluid/multiple gender identities, I sometimes participate as a model.
Through these series, I hope to blur gender boundaries while creating visually appealing photographic images. In my Queer Portraits, my aim has never been to reach (or teach) perceived "masses of straight people" about my identity or that of the people I photograph, but rather to provide my queer friends and other radical queer communities with a forum through which to see ourselves represented in opposition to the aesthetics celebrated in dominant/mainstream imagery. These specific projects, however, are intended to reach a broader audience; their accessibility and scope is directed not only at queer viewers but at those who do not personally identify with queerness. For these viewers, the images are intended to be disturbing -- to challenge and destabilize aesthetic notions of what they perceive is occurring in the actual portrait -- in opposition to queer viewers who will more often immediately recognize the duplicitous events, gaining a sense of pleasure from the series that may be less appealing to those who hold the gender binary sacred and incontestable. Queer Fictions are intended to reveal the malleability and instability of gender, reconstructing relationship dynamics with a queer sensibility and visually nuanced aesthetics.
Intention artistique
Switch 2009
Cette série de diptyques présente des paires de « couples – apparemment – hétérosexuels », qui interagissent intimement dans le cadre d’un studio. Dans cette parodie de portraits de « bal d’étudiants », qui défit la stabilité des genres, on se rend compte que les couples se composent non pas de quatre modèles, mais de deux.
Alone Time 2007
Alone Time utilise le collage pour explorer la dynamique entre deux personnages joués par le même modèle. Avec leur éclairage artificiel et leurs couleurs saturées, les espaces domestiques de ces œuvres présentent une esthétique queer qui défie l’identité et les rôles sexuels.
One Night Stand 2007
One Night Stand est un récit photographique de drague gay qui documente une aventure sexuelle, de la rencontre initiale jusqu’à la fin de la soirée. Utilisant des modèles jouant des rôles féminins identifiés, Levine pousse le travestissement plus loin, soit du costume à la nudité, pour créer des images visuellement déroutantes et convaincantes.