PUBLIC IDENTITIES, PRIVATE INTIMACIES

Material by Jet Swan
Loose JointsSeptember 2021Selected by Claire de Rouen

When I first saw Jet’s work, I was struck by its beauty, complexity and technical brilliance. Material presents portraits and cropped images of bodies that are partially or wholly clothed and diverse in gender and age. We see the plump gorgeousness of an infant child and the dimpled thigh of someone much older, standing, legs bare, on a piece of black, velvety material. Light is artificial, low, like that of the interiors seen in Northern Renaissance painting. Repeatedly, the camera has been drawn to the crotch, seen beneath tights or jeans or underwear. To me, this work is about photography’s complicity in the production of a visual language of desire and emotional relationships. – Lucy Kumara Moore