One set of images from Ashley Kolodner’s “GAYFACE” series. (Photo: Ashley Kolodner)
BY JAMES NICHOLS
Huffington Post Gay Voices
Ashley Kolodner is a New York-based activist and artist who specializes in still photography. Her latest project, “GAYFACE,” involves over 150 participants across six states and utilizes portraiture in an attempt to both empower the subject and transform the perspective of the viewer. The subjects are photographed in two frames — one with eyes closed and the other with eyes open to give the viewer “a sense of the subject’s vulnerability.
As a body of work, “GAYFACE” is Kolodner’s response to the marginalization of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals living in America and the mainstream attempt to cast LGBT identity in black and white terms. She cites the goal of the project as an attempt to “break the barriers under which the LGBTQ community has lived for too long… to give this community the voice it deserves and the power to speak the diverse truth… [and] to portray the innovative, personal and participatory face of the gay movement and American culture at large and in the home.”
For more information on Ashley Kolodner’s work check out her website.
Read more at Huffington Post Gay Voices
