Reception: Saturday, June 22, 2-5pm
Exhibition Dates: June 1 – June 29, 2024
Stephen Bulger Gallery is pleased to present Wynne Neilly’s Have / Hold, on display in our Reading Room Gallery from Saturday, June 1 to Saturday, June 29. Have / Hold is a collaborative project produced by Wynne Neilly and Kyle Lasky.
Neilly and Lasky met at art school in 2009. They were two young, butch women, who found kinship in their masculine identities and mutual investment in documenting the queer experience. They transitioned in tandem and supported each other through the complicated and non-linear process of reimagining their identities and relearning how to see themselves and be seen by others. The ease with which they express their closeness is built on a lifetime of socially acceptable, affectionate “female friendships.” They took this type of closeness and kept it with them.
Years later, as two cis-presenting men – and more specifically “men who are seen dating women” – their relationship is an anomaly among representations of male friendship. When they are together, when they take photos together, when they interact publicly (online or in-person), it is with an intimacy people are only comfortable seeing between lovers, and they are assumed to be such. This tension has always interested Neilly and Lasky, and they’ve been intentionally contributing to an archive of their relationship, to continue in perpetuity. They balance on a thin line between platonic and sexual intimacy, an intimacy always ripe with romance. They create scenes in which the viewer would feel very familiar seeing a couple framed – a lazy morning in bed, getting ready for a night out, changing to swim, taking in a sunset on vacation – scenarios in which couples typically perform their relationship, but all of which escape that defining edge of proof. Their trans (and non-male) identities bring a nuanced component to the work, further complicating the homoerotic imagery.
While gay and queer representation in mainstream media increases, there remains a lack of exposure to-or celebration of-platonic “same-sex” intimacy. The images in the project frustrate an erotic expectation while creating space for a new truth–a representation of platonic intimacy that has not been seen before.
Neilly is a Canadian, queer, and trans identified, visual artist and award-winning photographer. He is most known for his monumental cover of TIME Magazine featuring Elliot Page in 2021, along with receiving recognition for winning Scotiabank’s New Generation Photography Award in 2023, which included an exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
