Kyle Meyer: Interwoven
Kyle Meyer’s project Interwoven is the perfect marriage of subject matter and process.
– Aline Smithson, Lenscratch
Kyle Meyer creates richly tactile artworks as conceptually layered and complicated as they are visually lush and intricate. In this debut monograph, Meyer’s portraits from his Interwoven series reflect an interest in infusing digital photography with traditional Swazi crafts and in giving voice to silenced members of the LGBTQ community, who are marginalized in eSwatini. Tension between the necessity of the individuals to hide their queerness for basic survival and their desire to express themselves openly inform both the subject and the means of fabricating Meyer’s unique works.
Each work from the Interwoven series is labor-intensive, taking days or sometimes weeks to complete. Meyer often photographs his subjects wearing a traditional head wrap made from a vibrantly colored textile. He then produces a large-scale print of the portrait and hand-shreds the photograph, together with the fabric from the head wrap, weaving the strips into a complexly patterned, three-dimensional work. With the final portrait, Meyer presents each person’s individuality and beauty while using the fabric as a screen to protect their identity. " Included in each copy of this book, you will find a unique piece of fabric torn from the remnants of the Interwoven project. It is intended to serve as a bookmark.
Kyle Meyer’s project Interwoven is the perfect marriage of subject matter and process.
– Aline Smithson, Lenscratch
Kyle Meyer creates richly tactile artworks as conceptually layered and complicated as they are visually lush and intricate. In this debut monograph, Meyer’s portraits from his Interwoven series reflect an interest in infusing digital photography with traditional Swazi crafts and in giving voice to silenced members of the LGBTQ community, who are marginalized in eSwatini. Tension between the necessity of the individuals to hide their queerness for basic survival and their desire to express themselves openly inform both the subject and the means of fabricating Meyer’s unique works.
Each work from the Interwoven series is labor-intensive, taking days or sometimes weeks to complete. Meyer often photographs his subjects wearing a traditional head wrap made from a vibrantly colored textile. He then produces a large-scale print of the portrait and hand-shreds the photograph, together with the fabric from the head wrap, weaving the strips into a complexly patterned, three-dimensional work. With the final portrait, Meyer presents each person’s individuality and beauty while using the fabric as a screen to protect their identity. " Included in each copy of this book, you will find a unique piece of fabric torn from the remnants of the Interwoven project. It is intended to serve as a bookmark.
Kyle Meyer’s project Interwoven is the perfect marriage of subject matter and process.
– Aline Smithson, Lenscratch
Kyle Meyer creates richly tactile artworks as conceptually layered and complicated as they are visually lush and intricate. In this debut monograph, Meyer’s portraits from his Interwoven series reflect an interest in infusing digital photography with traditional Swazi crafts and in giving voice to silenced members of the LGBTQ community, who are marginalized in eSwatini. Tension between the necessity of the individuals to hide their queerness for basic survival and their desire to express themselves openly inform both the subject and the means of fabricating Meyer’s unique works.
Each work from the Interwoven series is labor-intensive, taking days or sometimes weeks to complete. Meyer often photographs his subjects wearing a traditional head wrap made from a vibrantly colored textile. He then produces a large-scale print of the portrait and hand-shreds the photograph, together with the fabric from the head wrap, weaving the strips into a complexly patterned, three-dimensional work. With the final portrait, Meyer presents each person’s individuality and beauty while using the fabric as a screen to protect their identity. " Included in each copy of this book, you will find a unique piece of fabric torn from the remnants of the Interwoven project. It is intended to serve as a bookmark.
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Photography by Kyle Meyer
Foreword by Todd J. Tubutis
Interview by Andy CampbellHardcover
11 x 12.75 inches
192 pages / 80 images
Trade ISBN: 9781942185680
Signed ISBN: 9798890180131Co-published with Yossi Milo
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Over the past several years, Kyle Meyer’s (b. 1985) artistic foundation in photography has been plagued with a single question: how can a digital image serve any human connection when it is entirely produced – and ubiquitously reproduced – by mechanical means (camera, computer, printer) ?
This has led to extensive research and apprenticeship with handicraft artisans, exploring the tactile potential of photography. Throughout each successive body of work he creates, traces of the handmade are present, be it weaving, hand-dying, or layering—all which add texture, dimension, and meaning. While this pursuit is predominantly experimental and process-driven, there is also a perpetual analytical inquiry about his own identity as a gay man and the LGBTQ communities with whom I identify. It is deeply rooted in his experience growing up in a conservative farming community in rural Ohio and subsequently through spending a significant period as an adult in Swaziland where it is illegal to be homosexual.
By weaving together photographic and sculptural elements, his artwork metaphorically speaks to the human condition of seclusion, oppression, memory, and loss. It also laboriously questions the potency of digital photography by embracing the haptic qualities of craft.