"Unidentified 105a" from the series "Interwoven"

Kyle Meyer

Part of the Recent Acquisition Highlights

Meyer creates intimate portraits of gay men wearing a head wrap, traditionally worn by women, using a vibrantly colored textile that they chose. Each piece from the "Interwoven" series is labor-intensive, taking days or sometimes weeks to complete.

After learning to weave in Swazi factories, Meyer wove the fabric from the headwraps through each printed face, bringing the DNA, sweat, hair of the sitters into the portraits. After producing a large-scale print of the portrait, Meyer hand-shreds strips of the photograph together with the fabric from the head wrap, interweaving the strips into a complexly patterned, three-dimensional unique work. With the final portrait, Meyer presents each man’s individuality and beauty while using the fabric as a screen to protect his identity.