LUKE AUSTIN: SOFT INSTANT
MARCH 19–APRIL 16, 2016
OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016 FROM 6-9 PM
JASON VASS, 1452 E. Sixth Street, Los Angeles, CA 90021
Social media phenom and Australian-born, Los Angeles-based photographer Luke Austin opens his first solo exhibition in Los Angeles on March 19. Known for his intimate nude male portraits, Austin captures images that reveal the individuality of his subjects in a moment of disarming contact. Austin intuitively conveys humanizing vulnerability and masculinity.
Austin used the Instagram platform as a way to connect with potential subjects. And in 2013 traveled to eleven different cities throughout Europe, Australia and North America, to meet over 132 men behind the Instagram accounts that interested him. He photographed these strangers in the interiors of their homes and personal spaces, publishing the collections in Beau Book, a popularly acclaimed photo book released in 2015.
Motivated by a desire to uncover the identities of the men hidden behind the platform’s visually staged and filtered culture, Austin set out to reveal and connect to something more immediate, natural and raw.
Soft Instant is a departure from Austin’s previously slick digital output of photographs of strangers and will feature a series of 14 portraits of friends shot entirely on film at his home in Los Angeles (2016) and New York City (2015).
Image Credit: Luke Austin, Ben (New York), 2015, archival inkjet print, 36 in. x 36 in.
