Intimate portraits of artists and the jewelry that issues to them

Earlier this yr, Raven Row Gallery offered Eyes Open within the Dark, a haunting retrospective of the work of Peter Hujar. The American photographer, who was a central determine in New York’s downtown scene within the 70s and early 80s, was devoted to creating intimate portraits of his pals, lovers and people with whom he shared formative relationships. Hujar was famend for his integrity and refused to compromise or pander to industrial forces. Instead, he made idiosyncratic work that resisted floor interpretation and rewarded the viewer for his or her deep engagement. “The sheer presence of the photographs, in spirit as well as physically, felt so poignant,” recollects Steph Wilson, who was so affected by the present that she visited thrice. “We’re all starved of work like this in a time of endless digitised imagery.”  

Hujar’s present turned the catalyst for Wilson’s debut photobook, Gilded Lilies, an intimate rumination on the objects we adorn ourselves with and the infinities they include. Shot in London over two weeks throughout April’s warmth wave, Wilson gathered pals and collaborators – artists and meaning-makers of their fields, together with Harley Weir, Elsa Ruoy and Micheala Stark – to be photographed carrying items of jewelry that matter to them. 

“I’m a devoted materialist,” Wilson explains over electronic mail. “Since I was a kid, I’ve been entranced by unusual objects that seemed to pulse with narrative, mysticism or beauty. My relationship to objects is one of love; they become vital sources of energy to create. They nourish us – artists or collectors – so deeply. I think the commodification of most of what we deem as valuable has made us hesitant to admit we love anything material out of fear of being deemed as vacuous. But take away monetary value, and it’s just down to that stirring feeling an object gives you. Jewellery can hold many lives within it. My dead father’s signet ring, for instance, remains a potent piece of him. It’s about acknowledging how much exists beyond ourselves and how these objects lived many lives before we were born and will continue to, well, after we’re dead.”

Like Hujar, Wilson wished the work to learn by her present relationships, individuals who knew her work and subsequently understood what they had been moving into. “I’m at some extent the place individuals anticipate to be nude once I {photograph} them,” explains Wilson. “Making nudes felt appropriate for Gilded Lilies, as I wanted the book to feel unbound to a particular era. To feel intimate – sensual but not sexy – and provoke a feeling of vulnerability for both the sitter and the viewer. That uncharted territory of true vulnerability – no hiding behind fancy lighting, distracting fashion or airbrushing – almost feels taboo nowadays. It’s flavoured with being somewhat problematic, as if seeing yourself for how you really are is triggering.”

The e book’s title, a subversive misquote of the phrase “gilding the lily” taken from Shakespeare’s 1595 play King John, gives a satirical anti-title for a e book about adornment. This rebellious vitality is palpable all through the publication, from Kinza Shenn’s fascinating essays to the varied perception techniques about magnificence shared by every of Wilson’s sitters. “Michaela Stark perfectly embodies the themes of the book; she uses her own folds of flesh as embellishment. She’s a facetious twist on how we’re told to present as ‘appropriately’ beautiful. Her work is defiant and provocative, all whilst being so enmeshed with her deep, instinctual devotion to how she perceives beauty, which is entirely hers.”

In distinction to Wilson’s different long-term challenge, Ideal Mother, now in its fourth yr of manufacturing, Gilded Lilies is rooted in spontaneity, fuelled by the preliminary surge of enthusiasm born from Hujar’s present. As Wilson describes it, “Part of the challenge’s magic was all the way down to the parameters I set for it. The quick tempo eliminated a component of distraction, making the work really feel extra sincere. I wished that spark to be its driving power, and never let the work get dried up by pragmatism and logistics.”

While reframing materiality, adornment and sensuality are the important thing themes in Gilded Lilies, Wilson additionally describes the e book as a “love letter to what feels missing in image-making today.” Turned off by our present picture world, the place AI and social media’s commodification of images dominate our screens, Wilson opted for a completely analogue method. Each picture is shot on movie, left completely unretouched and printed by hand, providing the viewer a uncommon phenomenological connection to the medium. “It’s become a standard process to take an image of someone, and without even running it by them, removing what we presume will be considered as flaws. The effect this has had on art and the representation of artists is really sad to me. We all need to be a corner of respite. I want to make photography feel precious again.”