"The Darkness is for Living Together" is a collaborative project made with artist
David Weishaar, whose work has long fascinated me. Favouring the portrait
genre as his main means of expression, he chooses his models amongst people
with whom he has a strong relationship of friendship or admiration for their
activism or commitment. In short, it is a matter of a group, an entourage, a
chosen family. So he takes his characters into nocturnal worlds referenced from
fantasy, mainstream, vampire or witch stories. These dreamlike and symbolic
environments are conducive to the exploration of bodies, genders and desires.
I took inspiration from his paintings to create my photographs – some images
are even direct reference to his work – and he then digitally painted some details
on them, blurring the line between photography and painting. We have created
this serie as a fashion story, in collaboration with Agapornis, a collaborative
fashion project based on the love of creating together. It materialises in an
enchanted universe, with objects inspired by fantastic repertoires, at the same
time claiming stage costumes and pieces of craft know-how. This debauchery
of elegance becomes a plea for another world, full of dreams and freedom.
The title of this project comes from the book The Faggots & Their Friends Between
Revolutions, an exploration of the experience of queer community life in the
1970s, written by Larry Mitchell in 1977. This was a shock when I first discovered
it, and it continues to inspire me today.
So what is beauty, you ask ? Well to us, beauty is queer. It is something that
you can’t grasp, that keeps changing, something magical that you can’t pin
down. It is bizarre, fabulous, fascinating and yet considered repulsive in a
conventional approach. It is love, pleasure and experimentation. It is all of these
things at once, once you decide to queer the world. These images create a new
story, where reality is reshaped, malleable, and things are not condemned to be
as they have been defined. We want our images to challenge the conventional
notions of beauty and seek to highlight the unexpected places where beauty
can be found. Perhaps the Darkness is a good place to start looking for it.
"The fairies have left the men’s reality in order to destroy it by making a new
one."
Larry Mitchell, The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions, 1977
A collaborative project between photographer Matthieu Croizier and artist David Weishaar.Photography and creative direction by Matthieu Croizier
Digital painting by David Weishaar
Digital painting associate by David Fernandes
Fashion by Agapornis and Nike.
The models are Jo(nathan) Kolly, Morgane Gillioz, Pharell Golli, and Shaliy Jiang Meow.
Hair and make-up by Morgane Gillioz.
First published on Kaltblut Magazine, May 2023