Fantasía Mongo 2 by Maciste Betanzos: Visite mi galería...EVE FOWLER

12 marzo 2010

Visite mi galería...EVE FOWLER

EVE FOWLER (1964-)

Eve Fowler: When I started photographing hustlers in 1993. I was taking photographs on the street. I wouldn’t say that work was conceptual. But after two years I had the idea that I was attracted to the hustlers because of some things we had in common. The experience was like a return to some feelings I had from when I was growing up. I would say there was something nostalgic about my affinity for the people I was photographing. “Nostalgia” translated directly from its Latin root means “home,” or the pain of returning home, and I decided to try to get that into the pictures. I figured that my nostalgia was for the seventies, because that was the time when whatever made me the way I am was making the hustlers the way they were. So I made pictures similar in format to what you might expect from any grade school photographer or commercial portrait studio -- traditional, wallet-sized school portraits that would give the viewer a feeling of nostalgia, both good and bad. I didn’t want it to be obvious. I didn’t even say that the people in the photographs were hustlers when I showed them.

Eve Fowler: It gets pretty complicated: when you’re biologically a man and you say you’re a lesbian, it’s a little hard to get women to be okay with that, since most lesbians want to be with other women. It’s a tough spot. Similarly, I met a group of young women who like to be called “boys.” They consider themselves transgender whether they’re on hormones, have had surgery, or not. The word has more to do with a state of mind than an exact physical state. I know a lot of older butch dykes that don’t mind being called women, but the younger set who consider themselves transgender, whether they’re transitioning or not, like being called boys. You see something in some of these people, and it’s obvious that their sexuality is difficult to pinpoint. It puts them in the margins, depending on who they’re around. That was a relief for me, because I often feel like it’s something that goes on internally for me. I feel alien around certain types of women, particularly the ultra-feminine type. So to see that revealed on the outside, and see how someone can navigate the world in a different way is a relief.