In the aftermath of body trauma, I use portrait photography to bridge my own gap between fear and intimacy, relearning what it means to connect with myself and others.
Primarily working with film-based cameras and hand-sensitized photographic materials, I reintroduce touch through process. The chemical baths of developing film and making platinum-palladium prints represent healing through total immersion and surrendering to the unknown. In addition, the slowness, delicacy, and tactility of these acts offer a safety I am learning to trust.
I make portraits in domestic spaces and the natural environment, creating a visual record of this exploration. When I document relationships, specific gestures emerge: hovering or reaching hands, eyes that meet the lens directly or turn away, and bodies that lean toward or pull back from one another. I capture both distance and closeness between the people I choose to photograph, often myself, my partner, and my mother. This is seen literally in varying the distance between photographer and subject—in some images our bodies physically touch—and metaphorically through shifts in lighting and tone. My work holds space for opposing forces to coexist: grief and resurgence, pain and joy, masculine and feminine, light and dark.
My practice contends with power dynamics inherent in familial, platonic, and romantic relationships, specifically in assumed gender roles and the photographer/subject hierarchy. These power structures intersect with the intimacy I am attempting to rebuild. I work to redistribute this power by asking my partner to photograph me in return and appearing in portraits with my subjects rather than remaining behind the camera. And through critically engaging with the platinum-palladium process, I am writing my existence as a queer and trans person into the canon of archival printmaking. I am interested in developing this research further and examining how queer people in particular have interacted with and contested the camera as both photographer and subject.
My work is informed by queer literature such as Maggie Nelson’s poetry and prose in Bluets and The Argonauts, José Esteban Muñoz and his concept of “queer temporality” in Cruising Utopia, and T.C. Tolbert’s reflections on transmasculinity in Gephyromania. In addition, I gather inspiration from works on power theorization such as Steven Luke’s Power: A Radical View and Jean Baudrillard's The Agony of Power. I am drawn to the work of other photographers such as Carla J. Williams, Siri Kaur, Daniel Rampulla, and Michael Northrup.
Lars Mattingly (they/she) (b. 2000, TN) is an artist and educator based in Denver, Colorado. They received their MFA in Photography + Film at Virginia Commonwealth University, during which they were awarded a Graduate Teaching Assistantship both years. She holds her BA (2023) from Sewanee: The University of the South, where she received the Peter V. Guarisco Merit Scholarship in Art. Lars has exhibited at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University and had a recent solo show at the Carlos Gallery in Sewanee, TN. Lars was a 2023 selected attendee at the Chico Review.
Photo by George Meng