As a conceptual landscape photographer, I depict human experience without actually photographing human beings. Like an anthropologist from another planet, I document evidence of a culture with a specific eye toward what humans choose to treasure and to discard, and how those interactions transform the landscape.My investigation of the nude human body in relation to nature is focused on the collection of photographic evidence to answer two key questions: in what specific ways do we, humans, interact with our natural surroundings when the physical and psychological barrier of clothing is removed, and how does the naturist mindset actually translate visually and photographically? In what ways will the human footprints left by members in a dedicated naturist community differ from those fragments of existence (like street trash) found outside in the world? I can only imagine what evidence I will collect – wet buttcheek prints left poolside standing in for actual flesh, a well-worn patch of earth beneath a swing set rather than its grinning rider.
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GVBQ is a New York City-based artist with a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA in Photography from Pratt. GVBQ’s photographic projects have been featured in publications including the Wall Street Journal, Hyperallergic, and the Village Voice.