Kyle Meyer: Interwoven

Kyle Meyer: Interwoven by Aline SmithsonMay 30, 2017

©Kyle Meyer

While reviewing portfolios at Photolucida, I watched as one photographer would approach a table for his timed review and begin to unwrap large woven tapestries of photographs. The work created quite a buzz and it was exciting to see his unique approach to photography. Kyle Meyer’s project, Interwoven, is the perfect marriage of subject matter and process. Interwoven speaks to closeted homosexuality in Africa, tradition, and what is concealed and revealed.

Kyle Meyer (b. Ohio,1985) is a multidisciplinary visual artist. He graduated in 2009 with a BA in Photography from The City College of New York and an MFA from Parsons the New School for Design in 2016. Meyer is a multidisciplinary visual artist. He was awarded the Mortimer B. Hayes Brandeis traveling fellowship in 2009, which led him to Southern Africa where he has been working on several long term projects focusing on LGBT rights, HIV awareness, and ritualistic religious practices. Currently he has taken what he has experienced throughout the culture and through sculpture, performance, and photography has created a diverse body of work dealing around gender, sexuality, life and death.

His work has been exhibited at the Photographic Resource Center; Boston, Fuller Craft Museum; Boston, Sheldon Museum of Art; Nebraska, State Hermitage Museum; Russia, GuatePhoto; Guatemala, and Photoville; New York.

©Kyle Meyer

Interwoven

Interwoven is a portrait series of homosexuality in a hyper-masculine African country. Due to the fact that homosexuality is illegal in this country, Gay men constantly have to hide their sexuality. After befriending several gay men, I made unique head wraps from wax-print fabric, on each man, giving them their own unique outlet to express their individuality that they have to hide. Finally, the printed photograph is woven with the fabric through the face concealing their identity and literally hiding them behind the fabric of society. Through this series, I aim to channel a voice for these suppressed men, while embracing an otherwise frowned-upon identity with a sense of pride without neglecting the reality of their every day existence.