© 2024 WGLT
A public service of Illinois State University
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
A weekly series focused on Bloomington-Normal's arts community and other major events. Made possible with support from PNC Financial Services.

University Galleries exhibit gazes at queerness, but it’s about life in general

Three photographs hang on a stark, white wall with gray typeface text underneath that reads, "you trusted my intentions, welcomed me in, allowed me to look at you. I felt a freedom, a permission to simply show up and see what I might find."
Handout
/
University Galleries
Three images that appear in Jess T. Dugan's solo show at University Galleries titled "I Want You to Know My Story." The exhibition runs through Oct. 16.

Work by St. Louis-based photographer Jess T. Dugan is on view now at University Galleries in Uptown Normal. Dugan blends photographs and text in an exhibit called “I Want You to Know My Story.” So naturally, the first question WGLT wanted to ask Dugan on a walk through the gallery was, what’s your story?

“I’m an artist, and I use my photography to understand myself and my place in the world,” Dugan said. “That’s the short version of my story.”

Dugan identifies as queer and non-binary. Much of their work centers on identity and representation — sometimes in autobiographical ways, but also through portraits of others and use of still life photography.

“Everyone in this project is someone who I either knew, who was already a close friend or someone who I met in my life and felt drawn to,” they said. “My choice of subjects is a lot about my own desires. I’m often looking for things I see in myself or want to see in myself.”

Those traits include what Dugan describes as “a certain kind of gentle masculinity,” “a combination of strength and openness,” and androgyny.

Most of the portraits are of just one or two people, each intentionally posed in such a way that there’s a blend of formality and spontaneity. Dugan said they’re interested in and influenced by painting (specifically old master portrait painting and Dutch artists), having worked in art museums early on in their career.

“I often think of constructing my photographs as being more akin to painting because I choose each element very specifically and on its own,” they said. “So, I’m thinking about the person and their pose, but I’m also thinking about the color and the light. I’m balancing those three things equally.”

“I Want You to Know My Story” is part of an ongoing series begun in 2011 aimed at queer representation. This curation is unique in its currency — each of the photographs was taken between 2019 and present — and in the use of text (also by Dugan) as an acknowledgment of the “failings” of photography to explicitly tell a whole story. Sections of Dugan’s writing are seen periodically underneath photographs on the gallery’s stark white walls.

Many of the images on view were taken during the pandemic.

“I was thinking a lot about larger, existential questions,” Dugan said, “of what it meant to be a person; what it meant to be alive; what it meant to need relationship but have all of those severed; what it meant to be in isolation. I think that weight and that reflection on the ways in which each of our own identities are validated, seen and reflected by other people is really present in this work.”

Certainly, Dugan’s artistic oeuvre is largely centered on identity and representation of queer people and others who are not often visible in the visual arts. But Dugan said while this show has elements of queerness in it, it’s not “about” queerness.

“It’s really about something even deeper and more psychological,” they said. “In earlier work, I was focused on educational representations of queer or trans folks. In this new work, I went full speed ahead with my own version of life and reality.”

“I Want You to Know My Story” is at University Galleries in Uptown Normal through Oct. 16. Admission is free.

Lauren Warnecke is a reporter at WGLT. You can reach Lauren at lewarne@ilstu.edu.
Related Content