A Searing New Exhibition Reveals The Many Faces of Masculinity

A shirtless man flexes his muscle groups Popeye-style, his eyes and stance directed performatively in direction of the digicam. Another man, additionally shirtless, is considered in close-up in a bed room. Tears stream down his face, which is illuminated by an unseen mild supply like a Caravaggio come to life. A younger lady reclines upon her bent arm, her gaze forged upwards, one eye and cheekbone accentuated by deep purple bruising. This is the world of Hard Feelings, a searing, decade-long picture sequence captured by ascendent photographer Dean Majd, documenting life amongst his inner-circle: the skating and graffiti communities in Queens, New York.

A self-taught image-maker, Majd was born to Palestinian immigrants within the New York borough, which stays house and has lengthy served as a topic inside his work. “My mother gave me a camera when I was seven,” he tells AnOther. “My parents were working when we were young, so they left me and my brother to our own devices. I was shy growing up, so I used the camera to connect. I’d take photos of my friends skating, doing graffiti, sneaking into parties. This is early 2000s New York.”

Majd is reflecting on his path into images forward of his first solo exhibition, curated by Marley Trigg Stewart, at Baxter St on the Camera Club of New York. There, he’s displaying a number of simply over 20 works from Hard Feelings, a sequence he describes as “the foundation of my practice”. The challenge started in 2015, the yr that Majd, who’d taken a break from the skate and graffiti scene to work and attend school, determined to pursue images significantly. “I had never seen anyone succeed in photography who looked like me. I didn‘t go to school for it, never had a mentor, never interned or assisted. So [at that point] I was like, ‘You know what? I‘m going to take this seriously for myself.’” 

In a neighborhood skatepark, he encountered an previous good friend, James, snapping an impromptu portrait together with his point-and-shoot digicam. Per week later, James died immediately – an occasion that prompted Majd to reconnect together with his former group, now all of the extra united of their grief. “It’s an insular graffiti crew in Queens,” he says, “and they were the first ones to really encourage me to make images.” 

Before that, Majd notes, images was a wholly self-motivated endeavour, impressed by his admiration for the unflinching, diaristic work of Nan Goldin and his love of movie (favorite administrators embody Andrea Arnold, Gaspar Noé, John Cassavetes, Gus Van Sant, Claire Denis). Now, he had a whole group cheering him on – “I think a bit of it was the id, or the ego; they wanted to be photographed” – and a dedication to create what he phrases a “record of truth” for himself and his mates. “I went from taking a hundred rolls a year, if that, to 300 rolls per year,” he laughs.

By the top of 2016, Majd’s mates had given him “all access to their lives” – and a full spectrum of moments and feelings, from celebration to mourning, from boredom, bonding and creativity to ardour, substance misuse and violence. “Similar to how I’d never seen someone succeed in the arts or photography who looked like me – being Palestinian-American, being from New York – I’d never seen a predominantly male friend group, and predominantly men of colour, be represented in this way,” he says.

As the sequence progressed, a pure visible language advanced. “The style was really defined by the lifestyle – the fact our world took place at night, that it’s a very kinetic, on-the-fly, interpersonal environment.” The uncooked and soulful nature of the photographs is sort of all the time heightened by the results of electrical lighting, as an illustration, which at instances bathes topics in a golden glow, as in Rissa (Battered) or Ivan Crying in My Bedroom, or casts a neon haze over the scene, as in Hyper Dark or Self-Portrait (Hard Feelings). “My love for colour goes back to cinema,” Majd says, “and in terms of dramatic lighting, I’m deeply inspired by Baroque painters, specifically Caravaggio.”

Much like his hero Nan Goldin, Majd additionally cites mythology as a key reference. “I really frame Hard Feelings around the idea of an odyssey, a ten-year hero’s journey,” he says. “And that mode of storytelling allows me to mythologise the stories of these young men of colour, which we have been told don’t matter, to this elevated space of high art.” His distinct vernacular – “the surreal, truer-than-true embodiment of a moment” – whereas candid and impromptu, is a intentionally non-photojournalistic, anti-voyeuristic method, he notes. “If it were photojournalism, viewers would be detached from what’s occurring and would not truly connect to it.” 

Indeed, as with so many nice artistic endeavors, it’s the intensely private nature of Hard Feelings that makes it so piercingly common. As a viewer, we’re proper there on the social gathering as sobriety descends into hedonism, lounging on the mattress, hugging via grief, or experiencing the totally different faces of masculinity, so usually masked or suppressed in a world the place vulnerability is branded a weak point.

At the present, Majd has diversified the dimensions of the prints to additional improve the viewer’s connection to the works. “There are some larger scale images that really consume you in emotion, to mimic the highs and lows I was consumed in while making the work. Then there are smaller images that people can go and get close to because of the intimacy and the vulnerability within the work itself.” In all senses, he hopes that by creating probably the most direct dialogue between viewer and art work doable, folks – particularly individuals who have been traditionally underrepresented, as per the themes of his work – will be capable to be taught from the coming-of-age journey that he and his mates skilled.

“With Hard Feelings, I created a space for myself, for men of colour, for the people I’ve been photographing, to face their own shadows. To face their grief, their pain, their traumas or addictions, their darkest selves. And I hope that by reflection, by engaging with the work, that viewers can also do the same and find hope and healing.”

Hard Feelings by Dean Majd is on present at Baxter St on the Camera Club of New York till 2 April 2026. Aperture will publish a photograph ebook of the sequence in 2027.