Michael Young disassembles gay calendars as a metaphor for his closeted years.

Michael Young’s “Hidden Glances” is a series of handmade cutouts from erotic gay calendars spanning the time he hit puberty until the day he came out, collaged and reimagined. Young overlays images to compress time and space – years he sees as a void of hiding in plain sight.

The resulting images (even those rendered in black and white) are bright and colorful, contrastingly balancing joy, fear, and a memorial to time lost. They swell and sweat eroticism and desire, hanging with regret for the time he could not publicly acknowledge his true self.

“When I wanted to look at guys,” Young writes, “I could only risk taking quick glimpses because I was afraid that my gaze would linger too long and expose my homosexuality.”

We're proud to include Young among 10 artists Humble is spotlighting as jurors for Photolucida's 2021 Critical Mass. Roula Seikaly and I selected work we find truly remarkable in vision and concept, and Young is a shining star among many talented artists. For a limited time, Klompching Gallery is offering a super affordable edition of Young's work HERE. Get one before Gagosian snaps him up!

I spoke with Young to learn more about his work, his evolution as an artist, and his use of “reverse collage” as a powerful metaphor.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Michael Young