Nyeja, 1982-1987, silver gelatin prints. 

“Until I met Nyeja I had only worked with still life, and he was in fact my first nude. I was particularly interested in the linearity, tonality, and material texture of my pictures, which were carefully hand toned using selenium. No one else had approached the nude in such a manner. It was very labor intensive and arduous. With the Nyeja images I wanted to show the body as a landscape, creating geometry of its own meaning, resting within a world of patterns that welcomed him. Nyeja was my main model and I worked with him for around five years, before life and AIDS pushed him away. We had followed almost daily rituals in which he would come to my loft when the sun was hitting my windows in the right way. Then his dance would begin, under natural light and the focused lens of my camera.”

Nyeja has been exhibited worldwide and is currently in the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum; 
Chrysler Museum in Virginia; Yale University Art Gallery, Musee de l’Eysee in Switzerland, Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto, Portugal and The National Museum of Photography in Italy.

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