BOYS IN THEIR UNDIES FOR ART

'Horatio, stay young.' (c) Lyndal Walker 2005

Richard Watts speaks to artist Lyndal Walker about portraiture, masculinity and half-naked boys.

While working for a London photographic agency for a year, Lyndal Walker says she was struck by how disposable and commodified youth and beauty have become. "These 17-18 year old boys would come in, and we’d see four or five of them a day because guys have to work harder than girls to get work. The casting agent would look them up and down, then look at their folio, and within a couple of minutes they’d be sent back on the tube, see you later. These are our most beautiful young men, and this is how we value them!"

Walker’s personal revelations about the disposable nature of male beauty, coupled with a lifelong interest in transience, which has become one of the central themes in her work, have informed her latest exhibition. Stay Young, which opened on Thursday at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, comprises a series of photographs displaying young men clad only in their underwear.

The models, who Walker joking describes as "sulky art boys," appear at first glance to be confidant, sometimes even arrogant despite their lack of dress, although on closer examination the photographs reveals subtle signs of nervousness and vulnerability.

"I’ve been noticing their hands in a lot of the portraits," she explains. "There’s this tension in their hands or their ankles, although what’s most revealing is that they’re in their bedrooms, and you can see all their personal stuff. That’s the most exposing thing about this series. It’s not really about what they’re wearing or not wearing."

The models weren’t the only people nervous about posing, with Walker having to overcome her own qualms about photographing half-naked young men prior to the initial shoots. Indeed for many years Walker has struggled with the idea of portraits altogether.

"I was always about still life and interiors. I felt very uncomfortable about portraiture, although that really was just a confidence thing that has changed subsequently," she says, while admitting that she still finds it daunting asking people to pose for her. "It really is this weird thing to do, to ring people up and go ‘Ah, you don’t know me, but…’

Once she began shooting Stay Young, Walker says that the relationship between herself and her models became one of the most rewarding parts of the project.

"The whole experience of taking photos of someone in their undies became a really interesting thing. After the whole history of the representation of women I didn’t want these portraits to be in any way nasty or playing with power. That strange relationship between artist and model, it is a weird power relationship. I didn’t want there to be anything exploitative or sadistic in this series."

She says the experience also made her reconsider the work of other photographers she admires. "In looking at photographs that are by men of women, particularly of nude or semi-nude women, I’ve always had this sense that they’ve had sex. It wasn’t conscious but I kind of assumed an intimacy between them. That’s something that’s been really interesting for me in taking these photographs, because it’s not been an erotic experience at all."

The images comprising the series have the snapshot aesthetic of amateur porn, a look that Walker says she was deliberately aspiring for, given that the snapshot evokes an immediate sense of intimacy. "If it looks like a snapshot it’s too close to home, quite literally, and we have to engage with it at a more personal level," the artist clarifies. "Are these snapshots? What’s going on? How do I feel about looking at semi-nude boys, and is that different to looking at semi-nude girls? With these works I definitely want to raise all those questions."

Stay Young at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, 404 George Street Fitzroy, from 22 July – 3 September.

Website: www.ccp.org.au

T: 03 9417 1549E INFO@CCP.ORG.AU
Opening Hours: Wednesday - Saturday 11am - 6pm