Josh Aronson, Liferaft, 2025, archival pigment print, © Josh Aronson

Josh Aronson has a new project, Florida Boys, that reconsiders what masculinity looks like in today’s culture. His lush, cinematic images examine contemporary boyhood and the charged beauty of the Southern landscape.

For the past five years, Aronson has driven across rural Florida with groups of young men, creating staged yet intimate scenes that echo classic coming-of-age stories. His photographs are filled with light, sweat, and vulnerability—offering a version of masculinity rooted in tenderness and camaraderie rather than bravado. As a first-generation American, he approaches the landscape as both myth and inheritance, revealing how identity is shaped by place, history, and the longing to belong.

On view at Baker–Hall, Miami, from October 18 through November 22, 2025, the exhibition debuts new photographs from the artist’s ongoing exploration of contemporary boyhood, masculinity, and the Southern landscape.

Baker-Hall shares: Aronson will present an installation that will extend the world of his photographs into the space surrounding the gallery. This immersive element will invite viewers into a shared act of looking and imagining. The installation will echo the artist’s interest in creating spaces of gathering, both within his images and beyond them, such as in his recent public program Photo Book Speed Date at Pérez Art Museum Miami.

An interview with Nicole Combeau follows. Installation shots at the end.

Josh Aronson, Pond, 2025, archival pigment print, © Josh Aronson

Josh Aronson (b. 1994, Toronto, Canada) is a Florida-based artist whose work explores masculinity and landscape in the American South. He was raised in Florida by Iraqi and Polish parents who immigrated to the United States from Canada when he was 3. Aronson’s photographs have appeared in The New York Times, The Paris Review, The Financial Times, Frieze, Teen Vogue, Italian Vogue, Dazed, i-D, British Journal of Photography, Document Journal, The Guardian, and Apartamento. His first book, Tropicana (2020), is held in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Library of Congress. In 2024, he became the only artist to win both the People’s Choice Award and the Juror’s Prize for No Vacancy, the City of Miami Beach’s public art commission. Aronson’s work has been exhibited internationally by institutions including The Bass Museum of Art, Florida; Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Louisiana; and Nizhniy Tagil Museum of Fine Arts, Russia. He is the founder of Photo Book Speed Date, an artist-led public program held at Pérez Art Museum Miami and Vizcaya Museum & Gardens, among others, and designed to foster engagement with photo books through fast-paced, rotating conversations.

Instagram:: @jda.usa

Josh Aronson, Ophelia, 2025, archival pigment print, © Josh Aronson.

Florida Boys

Florida Boys is a series of staged photographs made across Florida’s backroads between 2020 and 2025. Working with groups of young men, I constructed scenes of male tenderness, vulnerability, and play in the outdoors; moments of connection that feel increasingly rare in a generation raised on screens. The work pushes against the epidemic of isolation and toxic masculinity shaping young men’s lives today, visible in everything from social media radicalization to the rise of mass shootings and political violence.

Set in forests, springs, and swamps, my images reimagine boyhood as something gentle and communal rather than guarded or competitive. I cast first-generation youth from cities and suburbs, many of whom, like myself, grew up without access to this kind of open, expressive space.

Drawing from the language of tableaux painting, Southern archives, and coming-of-age cinema, Florida Boys asks what tenderness might mean in a world that mistakes hardness for strength. Presented as intimate and large-scale pigment prints, the series looks for softness within a culture that too often equates masculinity with dominance, finding brief, fragile spaces where another kind of boyhood might exist.

Josh Aronson, Swamp, 2025, archival pigment print, © Josh Aronson.

Nicole Combeau: Can you start by describing Florida Boys? What is it? Who’s in it? Where is it?

Josh Aronson: Florida Boys is a series of staged narrative photographs made over the last five years. I collaborated with different groups of young men from the greater Miami community. Together, we took road trips to rural locations across North and Central Florida and staged scenes of coming-of-age and camaraderie for the camera. The work explores my own upbringing and helps me better understand where I’m from. I was raised in Florida, but my origins are elsewhere; photography has been a tool to explore this adopted home.

Josh Aronson, Creek, 2024, archival pigment print, © Josh Aronson.

Nicole: Where are most of the scenes? Are they all in Florida?

Josh: Most photographs are made in Central and North Florida, specifically in natural landscapes. I’m interested in staging a fantasy of a world that I’d like to exist: young men coming together, being tender and open with one another, curious and admiring of the landscape. Nature is our space for imagination and play, and it suits the way I like to work.

Josh Aronson, Sirens, 2025, archival pigment print, © Josh Aronson.

Nicole: How did photographing young men become central to your practice? Has that always been the case?

Josh: Yes. I’ve found that when I turn the lens on myself—literally or figuratively—I often make my most prescient pictures. I’ve always photographed what’s personal to me. I started with people who reminded me of myself. Less than a year before starting Florida Boys, I made a video featuring young men in New York. The piece centered around the question of: what does masculinity mean to you? That project never saw the light of day, but it laid the foundation for this. This project stages young men as surrogates—people who look like me, share my interests, or come from similar upbringings—placed in a world I want to see. It also began during the pandemic, when travel was restricted. Practically, it was easier to get a group of guys in a van for road trips. That shaped the work and opened my eyes to photographing what I know and wanted to know better.

Josh Aronson, Puddle, 2025, archival pigment print, © Josh Aronson

Nicole: It felt familiar.

Josh: Yes. When I was a young man coming of age, I spent time with other young men. My experiences in those spaces often made me uncomfortable; I didn’t feel like I related to the traditional masculine tropes. By photographing groups of young men, I’m trying to reframe my place among them. The camera lets me depict an ideal version of that scenario. Where I once felt unseen or unable to express myself, I can now bring together people who make me feel seen and comfortable. Photography gives me a level of control I lacked as a kid.

Josh Aronson, Vast Night, 2025, archival pigment print, © Josh Aronson.

Nicole: Often the men in your photographs aren’t hyper-masculine. There’s a specific type of man you’re drawn to photographing.

Josh: That’s true. I look for men who appear more feminine than the stereotypical “prototypical” man.

Nicole: Is that intentional? Can you talk about that?

Josh: Yes. If I’m depicting masculinity, I want it to reflect my own experience and what masculinity is today—more expansive and less binary than in past depictions. When casting, I look for men whose self and gender expressions feel emblematic of our time. And where photographers in staged narrative traditions from Gregory Crewdson to Justine Kurland often depicted mostly white subjects, I’m interested in expanding the lineage.

Josh Aronson, Lucidity, 2025, archival pigment print, © Josh Aronson.

Nicole: What questions were you asking yourself at the start of Florida Boys?

Josh: I began with a formal question: how do you make a successful group picture? I also wanted to see what a long-term body of work could look like for me—the projects I admired took years. I wondered what a depiction of Florida outside the stereotypes could be. I thought about my own coming-of-age expressed through photography. I was listening to Blonde by Frank Ocean, thinking about seminal projects that refract the artist’s upbringing through a more fantastical lens. I also wondered whether I could make images that felt emblematic of my experience growing up in Florida—feeling uncomfortable or queer as a young person—and create pictures that would make someone like me feel seen. I imagined someone finding a book of this work and thinking, “I relate to this.”

In 2020, I had also become “the Florida guy.” Florida was a muse in my photographs. I’d published Tropicana, portraits of Floridians made in Florida. But I mostly knew South Florida. I hadn’t explored the rest of the state. This project became a way to deepen my connection to that identity—using photography as a tool to explore and bringing people along for the ride.

Josh Aronson, Blue Angels, 2024, archival pigment print, © Josh Aronson.

Nicole: Can you walk me through your feelings about Florida? Start with how you felt when you were younger, then describe your feelings about this place when you moved back in 2020.

Josh: As a kid, I wanted to get out of Florida. I wanted to make art and meet other artists; from where I was in Miami, that didn’t feel possible. I bought into the fantasy of New York or Los Angeles. I left at eighteen for college in Chicago, then moved to New York, where I began photographing young artists for magazines. That’s where my photography path started.

But I’ve learned photographers make their most meaningful work when it’s close to them. While living in New York, I began returning to Florida to make pictures—initially without a defined project, just to use my time meaningfully and make work that mattered to me. That led to Tropicana, my first artist book and a body of work I felt proud of.

From there, I embraced Florida as a muse, but realized I didn’t know it well enough. During the pandemic, my New York lease was up. I moved back to be closer to family. Travel was difficult, so instead of flying I drove—making pictures on road trips through the state. That’s what led to Florida Boys.

Josh Aronson, Climbers, 2024, archival pigment print, © Josh Aronson.

Nicole: As someone who also wanted to leave Miami at eighteen and then found identity by returning home—that resonates. What did Florida mean to you growing up, and how has that shifted?

Josh: Growing up, Florida was a humid, green place. I moved here at three from Toronto, a big, gray city—very different. As a kid, I begged my parents to go back. We didn’t have extended family here, so we lacked the big, communal rhythms—holidays, large family gatherings. It always felt like home and not-home. My parents had similar feelings in Canada; their parents were immigrants. Across four generations, we were migrants. That insider–outsider feeling colored my perception of Florida.

I now know that’s common here. Many Floridians are transplants. There’s comfort in knowing that I’m not alone. This work has also given me a way to admire Florida’s natural beauty while being conscious of threats to it—sea level rise, climate crisis, heat, overdevelopment. We live in a precarious place.

Josh Aronson, Christlike, 2025, archival pigment print, © Josh Aronson.

Nicole: What does that mean for the work?

Josh: I love this place, and I feel protective of it. I see it as a duty to use photography to experience and document these spaces, and to uplift them—ideally inspiring others to visit and care for them, which can lead to conservation. I’m not an activist artist, but I can advocate for what I care about and create a ripple effect.

Josh Aronson, Capsized, 2025, archival pigment print, © Josh Aronson.

Nicole: Let’s talk about building these worlds. The pictures feel cinematic—like memories and inventions. How do you approach that visually and collaboratively?

Josh: I think about Paul Thomas Anderson’s idea: prepare obsessively so you can forget it on the day and be present. My process is research-heavy and organized. I use old guide books, blogs, and Instagram hashtags to find locations, and I study photographic archives—FSA images by Marion Post Wolcott and Walker Evans, and the Florida School for Boys archive, which documents an infamous reform school. Cinema remains a core influence, especially coming-of-age films, and I look to tableau painting—Eakins, Homer, Wyeth, Renoir—to inspire composition.

Once I identify destinations, I scout alone, make phone photos, and test compositions. After visiting many spots, I narrow down to what’s most compelling and logistically feasible for a three-day trip. I cluster locations and plan routes. Over time, as the groups got larger, I started importing my phone photos and overlaying silhouette PNGs to sketch out blocking. With six to eight people, plus wardrobe, food, and energy management, those sketches became a roadmap. They free me to focus on expressions, detail, and the collaborative atmosphere. The sketch creates a container we can all play within.

Nicole: Your dedication is very impressive. What enables that level of self-motivation?

Josh: Rigorous self-reflection. I’m obsessive; I study my own work constantly. The more you look, the more you see holes and how much better you can do. There’s that Timothée Chalamet line: “I know you’re not supposed to say this, but I want to be great.” I relate to that. That desire, coupled with reflection, pushes me to plan and produce. I realized the way I wanted to grow was through practice and a long-term project. This is how I’ve done it.

Josh Aronson, Closely, 2025, archival pigment print, © Josh Aronson.

Nicole: After five years and new images, what does “being great” mean to you now?

Josh: Looseness. Being rigid and goal-oriented only gets you so far. Going forward, greatness—for me—means letting more chance and unpredictability into the work. The project is ongoing; this exhibition is a five-year milestone that lets me look back and share with the community that inspires me. As I continue, I want more freedom and spontaneity to guide the picture-making, not just the aim of being a meticulous staged-narrative photographer. Florida is strange and unpredictable; I want more of that in the work.

Nicole: Final question: what’s often misunderstood about Florida—or boyhood and masculinity—and what do you hope the photos reframe?

Josh: Florida is often seen as wacky—retirement, vacations, beaches, parties, “strange” people. That’s not untrue, but it’s incomplete. Boyhood in visual media is largely told from a white male perspective. Coming-of-age narratives can be messy, soft, and uncertain, but there’s room for more queer perspectives and people of color. In male coming-of-age especially, there’s room for images of tenderness and belonging that aren’t about competition or toxic masculinity, but curiosity—about each other and the land we inhabit.

I hope the work adds those images to the world. I hope it lets people like me feel seen, and sparks reflection and dialogue about the state of young men in America—and the importance of getting off screens and into the world. This isn’t nostalgia; it’s imaginative. It’s a fiction about a world that ought to exist. Photography makes it feel more real, and my hope is that it becomes more real over time.

Nicole: Thank you.

Josh: Thank you for the conversation.

Josh Aronson, Eclipse, 2025, archival pigment print, © Josh Aronson.

Interviewer Bio:

Nicole Combeau (b. 1994, Miami, United States) is a Colombian-American visual artist and educator living and working in Miami, Florida. Through photography and book arts, she works with elders, families, and communities to share stories about care, ritual, and memory. Her projects often begin with her own family history and grow into collaborative programs rooted in Miami’s diverse communities. She also organizes and coordinates programming for the Creative Aging program at Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), which offers free arts workshops for adults 55+. She is available for local and national collaborations, consultation, and commissions.

Instagram: @beau_nicole

Installation View of Josh Aronson’s Florida Boys at Baker–Hall, Miami, Florida. Artwork © Josh Aronson. Documentation by Zachary Balber.

Installation View of Josh Aronson’s Florida Boys at Baker–Hall, Miami, Florida. Artwork © Josh Aronson. Documentation by Zachary Balber.

Installation View of Josh Aronson’s Florida Boys at Baker–Hall, Miami, Florida. Artwork © Josh Aronson. Documentation by Zachary Balber.

Installation View of Josh Aronson’s Florida Boys at Baker–Hall, Miami, Florida. Artwork © Josh Aronson. Documentation by Zachary Balber.

Installation View of Josh Aronson’s Florida Boys at Baker–Hall, Miami, Florida. Artwork © Josh Aronson. Documentation by Zachary Balber.

Installation View of Josh Aronson’s Florida Boys at Baker–Hall, Miami, Florida. Artwork © Josh Aronson. Documentation by Zachary Balber.

Installation View of Josh Aronson’s Florida Boys at Baker–Hall, Miami, Florida. Artwork © Josh Aronson. Documentation by Zachary Balber.

Installation View of Josh Aronson’s Florida Boys at Baker–Hall, Miami, Florida. Artwork © Josh Aronson. Documentation by Zachary Balber.

Installation View of Josh Aronson’s Florida Boys at Baker–Hall, Miami, Florida. Artwork © Josh Aronson. Documentation by Zachary Balber.

Installation View of Josh Aronson’s Florida Boys at Baker–Hall, Miami, Florida. Artwork © Josh Aronson. Documentation by Zachary Balber.

About Baker – Hall

Baker—Hall is a contemporary art gallery founded by Amanda Baker—Hall in 2024. It is the successor to her previous project, Club Gallery. The gallery aims to promote emerging and mid-career artists through a fresh curatorial approach, while also offering comprehensive art advisory services. Baker—Hall specializes in painting and sculpture across narrative and non-objective styles, with a focus on collaborating with private collectors and prominent corporate institutions. The gallery boasts a robust exhibition schedule, featuring a minimum of eight rotating exhibitions each year.

Instagram: @bakerhall.art