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The representation of body and self, loss, transition and personal identity are the themes I am most concerned with within my work. My own personal life stories, as with many artists, are the catalyst to me producing the work I do. Coming from a family where my mother had breast cancer for nine years, a verbally abusive, drug-addicted father, and the lack of acceptance of my sexuality really led me to having photography be my eventual outlet. I am constantly searching for security, and by documenting friends, lovers and acquaintances in an aesthetic that is sentimental and glamorized gives me the satisfaction of having something to hold onto. |
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Ryan Pfluger
The representation of body and self, loss, transition and personal identity are the themes I am most concerned with within my work. My own personal life stories, as with many artists, are the catalyst to me producing the work I do. Coming from a family where my mother had breast cancer for nine years, a verbally abusive, drug-addicted father, and the lack of acceptance of my sexuality really led me to having photography be my eventual outlet.
I am constantly searching for security, and by documenting friends, lovers and acquaintances in an aesthetic that is sentimental and glamorized gives me the satisfaction of having something to hold onto. I often create memories by making photographs that have a sense of something is about to happen or has happened. While in actuality they are fabrications of idealized relationships and events. Since I photograph mostly twenty-somethings, I am interested in the ideas of uniformity and individuality within particular subcultures. Often in my male nudes, the same brand of underwear can be seen, however each individual believes that they look different and attractive in them. While in some of my larger bodies of work I photograph women and spaces, I am particularly interested in the male body, as well as gender identity. While growing up I would look at men’s fitness magazines and the photographs Mapplethorpe took, and always wished I could be that object of affection. That object of the male gaze. However, I knew that was not going to be possible, thus I wanted to photograph men that I was attracted to or even those that looked like me.
Male nudes are the bulk of my work, especially my current bodies of work. While taking ideas from formal portrait photography such as images created by Avedon, I also take ideas aesthetically from old gay pornography. The male gaze and the dialogue between me, as the photographer, and that of the viewer is something the flows from image to image. The vagueness as to whether these men are lovers or strangers, and their personal relationship to me is something I am constantly playing with within the images. How we question gender and sexuality by looking at male nudes and the assumptions we make as a viewer are themes that are also very important to me.
My most recent work, and that which will be my MFA thesis in the upcoming year, is a series of work concerning the relationship between my father and I. By incorporating photographs consisting of nudes of my father and I, as well as interiors of my now-empty house, the feelings of homoeroticism, fear, loss and identity resonate. This visual dialogue discusses the shaping of my sexuality as well as the transition of our relationship.
As a whole I want my role as young photographer to go beyond the bounds of that of the gallery system. I want my work to give a sense of understanding as well as a different outlook to those who are outside of my generation. However, I want my work to be seen by those who were my age when I first knew I wanted to be an artist. I like seeing my work outside of the gallery walls, and in magazines, on the internet and even in zines, because I believe it gives a sense that there really are no boundaries between high and low art anymore.
