Out on the Range, January © Michael Young. From his series *Hidden Glances*.

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

Sterile, Wounds Need Air, 2020. © Camilla Jerome

Camilla Jerome has lived with multiple chronic illnesses, most of which were un- or misdiagnosed, for 15 years. At 30 years old, that’s half of her lifespan. For nearly a decade, she’s used photography and video to process and better understand these experiences.

“It’s all in your head” or “It’s not that bad” and other dismissive phrases are familiar to the RISD MFA candidate. This kind of medical gaslighting has been reported on with greater frequency, but the trouble persists. To comfort herself, Camilla Jerome has cultivated numerous creative projects that convey both her struggles with institutionalized medicine and the personal victory she finds in trusting her pain response.

I am particularly moved by the image Sterile. Though the title refers to Jerome’s experimental attenuated bleach wash that renders the print’s surface brittle and vulnerable, it abstractly calls up the social and personal struggles and alienation many women navigate related to reproductive health. The image is part of her series Wounds Need Air – a quiet, gut-punch paean to survival.

Following our conversation during Filter Photo Festival’s early February virtual student portfolio review, Camilla and I reconnected to discuss her work and the experiences that inform it. We dig deeper into her thesis work, talking about making invisible disabilities visible, and the necessity of self-advocacy.

Roula Seikaly in conversation with Camilla Jerome

A Photographer Finds His Voice Through Bold "Reverse-Collages" About Coming Out

Visualizing the Discomfort in Unseen Disabilities