Artist Statement
Most of the images submitted are from my book: “The Gender Frontier”, published by Kehrer, Heidelberg, German, 12/2003. I decided to include one photograph from the ‘80s, and three made since the book was published.
My work in gender identity issues began in New Orleans in 1978 when by fluke, on the last day of Mardi Gras, I came down for breakfast at my hotel in the French Quarter, and encountered a room full of cross dressers. I was invited to join them. After breakfast they paraded out to the swimming pool, and lined up in preparation for a group photograph. They were all looking in different direction except for one person who stared straight back at me. I felt as if I were looking into someone’s soul” into a man or a woman’s, but at the essence of a human being. I thought to myself as I took the picture: “I must have this person in my life”.
As it turned out, s/he lived a short distance from me in New York City and invited me to parties, clubs, and other events she enjoyed, including “Fantasia Fair”, the longest running annual transgender gathering in the United States. Shortly thereafter, I became its “official photographer”, and discovered a whole community of people, mostly hidden form mainstream society. In 1989, E.P. Durron, Inc. published my book, “Transformations: Cross dressers and Those Who Love Them” which was the first book to depict cross dressers in daylight, as Americans living their daily lives in both masculine and feminine roles. In my portraits, I was able to hold up a mirror reflecting cross dressers in a positive light, effectively changing the way my subjects felt about themselves as well as how they were perceived by the outside world.
Since the ‘90s, I’ve expanded my work to include people who live full-time in the gender in which they identify” male-to-female or female-to-male transsexuals, transgender or gender queer youth, and intersexed people, including those undergoing facial or anatomical surgery, political and social activists, and people in family and relationship variations and innovations.
I find work at the crossroads of gender identity to be a liberating experience: anatomy, sexual orientation, and gender identity are separate components of all of us. They influence but do not dictate who we are, how we relate to others or to ourselves. People whose bodies, relationships, and identity expression vary from “the norm” are not a small minority of unfortunate degenerates as many tend to assume. Rather, they are the ones asking important questions: What is the relationship between nature and nurture? What does “man” or “woman” mean? Is it possible to live without gender definition or in a state of gender fluidity? Finally, what is the essence of a human being?
I photograph in black and white and in color, editing to suit the image. The black and white images are selenium-toned gelatin silver prints. The color varies from “C” prints to the dye-transfer series: “Transformations”.
Captions
Mariette Pathy Allen, Kiwi at a coffee shop, NYC, 2002, selenium-toned gelatin silver print
