A constant presence in his own work, Jamil Hellu stares out at viewers from each of the photographs hanging on the Harold J. Miossi Gallery‘s walls at Cuesta College.
Sometimes intently, other times demure, coy, or with humor, Hellu said he inserts himself into his work to participate in society’s discussions about gender and culture. Through his art, he investigates ideas of fluidity, queerness, identity, connection, and community.
“I was looking for a type of representation that I didn’t see out there,” Hellu said during an artist’s talk on Oct. 24.
Born in Brazil to a Syrian father and Paraguayan mother, Hellu said he was a “very flamboyant kid” who grew up in a conservative household without very many role models he could relate to. Moving to the Bay Area had a huge impact on his life, his identity as a queer man, and his artistic process.
His exhibition, Face-to-Face, showing in the gallery through Dec. 8, is a compilation of two separate bodies of work: photographs from his Hues project (2017 to 2022) and three sculptures he created during a recent fellowship in Mexico.
Hellu began work on the Hues series of photographs following Donald Trump’s win in 2016. The conversations happening on TV, on social media, online, and in the newspapers were alarming, Hellu said. That includes discussions about immigrants and the LGBTQ-plus communities that continue today.
“How can I insert myself into my work in a way that brings about a conversation about connection, of this desire for us to connect with one another, of this desire to eliminate borders?” he said during his artist’s talk. “There’s a constant conversation in the United States of building borders. … To think about the desire not to hide, to exist, to be open, to manifest one’s identity.”
The idea, he added, was to invite people from inside and outside of his own community into his studio so they could have a conversation.
“We are all connected to so many smaller communities that compose this larger conversation,” he said. “The queer community is composed by so many communities.”
With that invitation came an open discussion about the possibilities he and the person he was going to photograph could realize together. It’s a collaborative process, a negotiation, said Timothy Stark, the Miossi Gallery’s curator.
“He’s very interested in queerness and identity and documenting this culture that he’s a deep part of in the Bay Area,” Stark said.
The images all have their own background color, their own hues. The portrait subjects are in costumes that represent some part or parts of themselvesābe it culture, gender, identity, upbringing, or the intersectionality of themāwhile Hellu is also in costume.
For instance, in one of the images, a Buddhist monk stands tall in a tailored pinstripe suit while Hellu dons the genderless robes of a monk in the seated position.
“She really wanted to put on this suit of masculinity,” Stark said.
The caption for the image expresses a little nugget of information so viewers can understand a bit more about the image and its subject.
“‘I have always had identification with the male gender and a secret desire to wear men’s clothing,’ expressed the Buddhist monk Sandra Who Degenszajn, who was born in Brazil,” the caption reads.
In another, both Hellu and the subject wear baseball uniforms, but a look down to Hellu’s feet shows high-heeled pleather boots. It’s a little piece that leads you into the conversation, Stark said.
“Chase Conrad started playing sports when he was 6 years old. As an athlete from Pasadena, CA, he didn’t have any gay role models growing up,” the caption reads.
One of the things that Hellu enables people to do is push the boundaries of their identities. It’s unique for the artist to act as a facilitator or negotiator, Stark said. Hellu allows subjects to come into the photography studio and fill the space how they want it to be, to represent themselves in the way that they want to be represented.
In doing so, Hellu pushes toward resistance, Stark said. Resistance against patriarchal norms, such as ideas of masculinity and gender. But Hellu chooses to do it in a celebratory, joyful way. And always with connection. Hellu and the subject of his Hues project images are always touchingāconnectedāin some fashion.
So much of art, Stark said, is cloistered. It’s an individual act away from the public eye.
“This is not that,” he said. “This is a public practice.” Ī
Editor Camillia Lanham is part of the resistance. Send art story ideas to clanham@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Nov 14-24, 2024.