ARTWORK TEXT

‘Morfologia Externa’ (External Morphologies) was an exhibition of portraits of trans women in Mexico City. (The title refers to a particular series named after butterflies.)

Having dated trans women I was aware that I have a different perspective than many. There is so much noise in the discourse, so much reactionary moral confusion.

For example, a trans woman is a woman (clue’s in the title) so a man who dates a trans woman is referred to as straight - but if, as a straight man, I make images of trans women, all hell breaks loose among gay men and women, and I have found it difficult to exhibit the work. You try explaining to your models that no one wants to show their pictures. It’s kind of heartbreaking. Sometimes my models would travel for hours just to get to the exhibit, it means a lot to them to be seen as valuable - but many in the lgbt+ community think they know better, and yet again trans women find themselves marginalised.

So with these images i want to offer a space where you can be free of all that, to just look for yourself, and see my models as i see them: self made and proud, as icons.

I feel Art has an obligation to elevate the banal to the extraordinary, to reveal what is under the surface, to make the unknown familiar - to communicate, to share, to build bridges - and from the beginning two things were important with these images: They had to be accessible to people who might be unfamiliar or even uncomfortable with the imagery - and they had to be originals - like my models - not just digital prints.

The photographic and the tactile, the digital and the organic, stages of consideration for the viewer: everything is layers.

The starting point for these portraits was photography, both of my subjects and of textures on the walls around Mexico City, I then combined the photographic elements digitally to create what I considered captured the 'moment' - a mixture of the subject's personality and mine. As a photographer I'm competent but I have two decades of experience working as a digital artist, so it is in the computer that I have the most control over the image. Someone like Annie Leibovitz can probably capture someone in one click of the shutter, but I need to spend some time in the computer to get to that point. I then work with the image to make the most beautiful thing I've ever made - and the next stage is to print up large scale, and paint and collage upon it - to the point that I start freaking out, and thinking 'Oh god this is a catastrophe, I don't know what I'm doing!' - and it's important to reach that point - on the verge of panic - and then I have to work the image back to make it something that exceeds what I thought was possible, more beautiful than I could have imagined. Each piece is like that - if you don't have that stage of panic, then it's no longer art - it becomes just 'design' - and you're cheating your subject really. As a rule I would say 'If you're comfortable then you're probably not thinking hard enough' - to really delve into something involves letting go of what you think you know, and if you respect your subject you should be prepared to go there for them.

You might think you can tell, when looking at a finished piece, where one technique ends and another begins - what is digital and what is paint or collage - but when you look closely it's not so clear. And this blurring of definition echoes my thoughts regarding identity: it's the individual that counts, not technical distinctions.

One thing you learn as a visual artist is that there is no such thing as a boundary between black and white, there is only a transition of greys, ever more tones revealing themselves the deeper one looks, In case you don’t get the analogy, I hope to encourage you to see the whole picture, not to get trapped into trying to categorise what you perceive as differences.

MATT WILLIS-JONES, MEXICO CITY, 2018

Introducing one of my models, Ivanna, at External Morphologies

invite for unveiling at Capitan Gallo (Mexico City)

WHY BELIEVE IN GOD WHEN YOU CAN BELIEVE IN ME?
A portrait of Terry Holiday

Terry Holiday selfie with Lynda Moore Orozco (right) in front of her portrait 'Why Believe In God When You Can Believe In Me?'

Lynda Moore Orozco, getting dizzy upstairs at my exhibit at Capitan Gallo

EXHIBITIONS IN MEXICO CITY

14/06/2018 - 23/07/18 - Capitan Gallo - Solo show: 'Why Believe in God When You Can Believe in Me?'
22/03/2018 - 22/05/2018 - OTRA Art - Solo show: 'External Morphology'
01/03/2018 - 21/03/2018 - Galeria Aguafuerte
08/02/2018 - 27/02/2018 - Galeria Aguafuerte
19/02/2018 - 31/02/2018 - Galeria 665
12/01/2018 - 22/01/2018- Galeria Aguafuerte
12/12/2017 - 23/12/2017- Galeria Aguafuerte

LINK TO PAST WORK: 1997 - 2013 (London, Chicago, Oslo)