Thursday: Matthew Mitcham’s new look

By Project Q Atlanta | Dec 24, 2009 | 2:06 PM

We never tire of seeing Matthew Mitcham, the gay Olympian who’s become a darling of LGBT media since he took diving gold last year. Now, photographer William Yang reveals him with a twist.

Yang’s new series of work, “Photographing Matthew Mitcham,” closes its run today at a London gallery. The images capture Mitcham’s sensuality while also using Yang’s style of writing on the photos.

I see that you’ve written on the images. It reminded me of your ‘Friends Of Dorothy’ series.
Yes, I suppose that’s become a speciality of mine, writing on images because, first of all, it contextualises the photograph, but secondly the handwriting identifies them as mine. All photographs tend to look the same in some ways, so it’s good to have something that identifies the photos as yours.

Do you write on many of your photos?
I tend now to produce photographs that are written on, just so I’ve got that identifiable style.

I think it’s great, because for me I’m more of a text-driven person than a visual person. So the two together works really well. Which is your favourite of the series?
The one where you don’t see his head, where I’ve just written on his chest about why I wanted to photograph him.

It’s been over a year now since Matthew won gold. Why do you think that Matthew is still someone of note?
Well, I suppose now it’s because he supports the gay community and he’s out there as a gay celebrity – that’s really what he’s become. He doesn’t shy away from being associated with gay things. And I think that’s terrific.

And if this new glimpse of Mitcham isn’t enough, there’s also Ross Watson’s recent painting of Mitcham (bottom photo). Not that we’re fixated with Mitcham or anything, but there’s also his series of pics wrapped in a towel. Just sayin’.

(Via Same Same)

Thursday: Matthew Mitcham’s new look

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