Mirror Study (OX5A6571)

In his "Mirror Study" photographs, Paul Mpagi Sepuya uses photography to construct visually complex spaces of queer desire, often capturing himself in an empty studio with friends, lovers, and acquaintances from his community. In this work, the artist’s body is intertwined with the body of a white male companion. A jumble of parts—a bent leg, a bare chest reclining—creates a pyramidal structure held up by the three legs of a camera tripod. Although the bodies are fractured, the collage-like construction multiplies their points of connection and places where they touch. “The fragments of portraits and studio come from my interest in the queer, social, creative, and erotic exchanges that all happen in the [photographic] process,” Sepuya explains. “I don’t think desire can be separated from vision, and I don’t think it can be separated from photography regardless of whether or not there is a human body in the photograph.”