INHALEXHALE is a lightbox installation that calls us to both individual and communal acts of self-care in response to the crisis of breathlessness and social anxiety experienced by so many during this era of late capitalism, where ecological catastrophe, corruption and police brutality quite literally threatens to rob us of our breath.
The installation, made from reflective ‘gold’ materials, set to a radial rising from the ground like the rays of the sun, provides a point of focus and reflection for the viewer to remain present, and establish inner calm, acting as a visual representation of the process of mindful breathing, the rhythm and flow from inhale(to)exhale.
As a “Fat Queer White Trans body” in the context of South Africa, artist Dean Hutton questions who or what is entitled to take up space. In doing so, they address the personal and political of hypervisibility: being visible (as a fat, queer, trans body) and invisible, unimportant at the same time (as a fat, queer, trans body). Their Tenderqueer sculptures “soft-radicals” – are round, soft, flexible and inviting. Our society expects fat and messy bodies to turn up traumatized and out of breath and never cheerful, horny, or beaming with a political speech. Soft Vxnxs creates comfort and space for vulnerability. Share your experience with this comfort object! #softvxnxs #goldendean #softradicals
Goldendean, BREATHE, 2020, 40 x 55.5 x 6 cm,Cast acrylic, LED 3000K warm light, Edition 10Goldendean, Vxnxs in Repose, 2020, Poly plastic, 300x132x155mm, edition of 30Goldendean, Birth of Vxnxs, Poly plastic, 155x102x129mm, edition of 30
Mellssa, Dean’s Bed 2014Gabriel, Dean’s Bed 2014Lesley, Dean’s Bed 2014Benjamin, Dean’s Bed 2014Tokologo, Dean’s Bed 2014Alberta, Dean’s Bed 2014Bongani, Dean’s Bed 2014Robert, Dean’s Bed 2014Sonya, Dean’s Bed 2014
Dean’s Bed is Love, intimacy, dreams, longing, conceit, queerness, identity, authenticity and beauty. Made by Dean Hutton, with people, not of subjects – Chosen family, old friends, new friends, artists. Working, playing, with the participants to reveal, but not capture, ultimate expressions of self… a naked… bare self that holds agency. Shifting photographer to participant, creating relationships and abandoning distance. Making Love. Like much of the artist’s work, this series of intimate portraits challenges what is “normal” outside of binary concepts of gender, embracing fluidity and a comfortable expression of difference. These issues of difference are particularly complex within an African context where Hutton’s white skin often places them as foreign to the continent while belonging nowhere else. Hutton deals deeply with the issue of whiteness in much of their work, particularly in their attempt to deconstruct the destructive possibilities of the white gaze and working with participants, never subjects, to disrupt the power relationships in the act of photography.
Dean’s Bed was presented at the 2014 Liste ArtFair Basel and FNB Joburg Artfair by Maria Fidel Regueros and ROOM gallery.
