Spencer Dent
My work mainly focuses on gender and the idea of genderlessness. This interest stems from my non-binary identity and my interest in theory and conversation around gender. My background is in photography but recently my work has branched out into other mediums such as weaving and printmaking.
My practice mainly focuses on the concept of ‘Genderlessness.’ To a large extent, I explore this through self portraiture to explore this concept through the concealing and distortion of the face and body through costume and makeup. When designing these elements, I am conscious of expected ideas of femininity and masculinity and try to reject or subvert these expectations to create a less gendered figure.
My practice has recently developed into other mediums as previously mentioned. I am pulling imagery from the design process of the self portrait photoshoots and interpreting them through other mediums. These new mediums are opening up new avenues for my work to go down and allowing my concepts to develop more thoroughly.
Genderlessness
These works are part of a project that explores the concept of ‘genderlessness.’ I use various mediums to investigate the relationship between pre conceived ideas relating to gender and the body. My interest in this topic comes from my own gender identity. Being non-binary has heightened my interest in themes of androgyny, the spectrum of femininity and masculinity and, of course, ‘genderlessness.’
One work consists of a series of six self portraits screen printed onto PVC and stretched over steel frames. These self portraits use costume and make up to conceal and distort my body and face. At the core of this concealing and distorting, there is a removal of detail from the figure. This removal of detail aims to make deciphering the gender of the figure harder, therefore attempting to make it ‘genderless.’
The other works in this project have used imagery pulled from the design process of the self-portraits. The three, large scale screen printed works were inspired by an early design I did for a costume for the self portrait series. My goal with this work was to make shapes that were recognisable as a body but did not feel particularly masculine or feminine. The woven work on the steel frame was inspired by a make up design I also created for the self portraits. The shapes suggest a face but, much like the large scale screen printed works, aim to lack any indication of gender.
Analogue and Darkroom
Along side my more focused ‘Genderlessness’ project, I have also been shooting and printing a more general body of photographic work. This body of work doesn’t follow a concept in the same way as my other project shown. It is much more situational and spontaneous. Using whatever camera and film I have on me at the time, I just point and shoot as I go, selecting and editing images in post. I am currently trying to curate a finalised series of images from my various shoots to print, frame and show at a joint exhibtion.
