Stuart Sandford Gets Intimate with 'Pictures' Polaroid Series (NSFW)
| 08/16/18
'Pictures' by Stuart Sandford
Self-portrait with Leo (i), 2014 (Photography by Stuart Sandford)
There's a unique balance to Stuart Sandford's polaroid series, Pictures. What appears a gritty exposition of queer culture and sexuality is softened with a refreshing sense of innocence and intimacy. Photos of slumbering naked men are followed with images of flowers in full bloom, offering an erotic subtext in even the purest beauty.
"All my work explores similar themes and ideas: masculinity, sexuality, the self created identity, all stemming from those moments around adolescence when we really start to become who we are," Sandford says. "One theme that's important in all my photographic work, and especially this exhibition, is the importance of the connections we have with the people in our lives, even if they only exist in an instant or a memory."
It's those people in his life that become his most important muses. Real moments of intimacy are photographed in all their beauty and ugly truth. A self portrait of Sandford kissing a lover, a photo of another lover's butt that appears to have just been ejaculated on, and another of one sleeping in the nude, all create more of a curated experience of a life lived than an artistic facade of something that only appears beautiful on the surface.
"For the most part I have a pre-existing relationship with my subjects," he says. "Be it a friend or a lover, the trust is already there. If it is with a subject I don't know, then I need to try and build a sense of trust straight away, and that comes from being respectful to them and their needs. But also, being that I don't work in a studio or have a complex set-up, I'm at home, and I use a small-scale camera, it feels inherently intimate which puts whomever I'm shooting at ease."
Sandford finds inspiration in the likes of other queer artists who so beautifully capture moments of intimacy, such as Tom Bianchi and Robert Mapplethorpe, whom the series references. In fact, it was a 2014 residency with the Tom of Finland Foundation in which Sandford began shooting such intimate moments on Polaroid.
"The main thing it's done is to push me to keep making work and making work that's fun and celebratory, whilst asking serious questions about who we are and how we live our lives," he says. "Tom always strove to do that, to not shy away from depictions of sex and sexuality and that's something to embrace fully."
Stuart Sandford's Pictures series will be on display August 16 through October at Queer/Bar in Seattle. Follow him on Instagram.
'Pictures' by Stuart Sandford
The palm trees of Laveta Terrace, 2014 (Photography by Stuart Sandford)
