I love the word desire. Desire in all of its forms. To desire another, to desire change, to desire the strength to believe in yourself. To say the word is to lower the voice, inhale the anticipation and exhale the surrender. Desire seeks an intimate relationship with another. Embraces. Becomes the other.

I like these words too: haunch, collarbone, breast, gluteus and patella. Bodily. Becoming yourself. We can be anyone.

One can never know what passes between the photographer and the subject, but the lens knows what it wants and gets a gift from the sitter every time the conversation flows both ways.

Jess T. Dugan’s portraits, from Every Breath We Drew, are about staying in. Intimacy and tenderness. We are asked to look into someone else’s eyes. See their skin. Be their skin. Be in their skin. The gaze is returned directly to us. The light and color are natural. Masculinity is gentle; femininity is strong. Tattoos, scars and piercings trace a journey across the flesh. Trust is given. We are here to listen.

Richard Renaldi’s pictures, from Manhattan Sunday, are about going out. Seek and be sought. His photos capture the earliest hours of the coming day which emerge from the light of night into dawn in shades of black and white. This world is humming at maximum confidence. To the point of forgetting the self. A mouth moving does not need words. It cannot hear itself talk. Besotted. Exhilaration and exhaustion after one’s atoms have reassembled in early morning dampness. Discomfort and joy. Blink and swallow.

Gaze.

 

 

Hours

Wednesday: 11am to 5pm

Thursday: 11am to 8pm

Friday: 11am to 5pm

Saturday: 11am to 5pm

Sunday: 11am to 5pm

 

 

Transformer Station

1460 West 29th Street

Cleveland, Ohio 44113

216-938-5429

transformerstation.org

info@transformerstation.org