Photography by Robert Flynt
Beginning in the mid-1980s, New York–based artist and photographer Robert Flynt shot clothed and nude figures, primarily male, underwater. By employing a variety of specialized (then analog) printing techniques, including multiple exposure, his nudes summon feelings of loss or the rapturous movement of sexual encounter. Flynt’s work reconsiders traditional notions of beauty by entering unfamiliar depths that foster sensual immersion in the viewer. His poetic images provide a new context for viewing the human form in relation to other bodies, space, and history.
“We look to (and at) images to find information: practical, aesthetic, erotic, and points between or overlapping. We are often seduced; we believe the photograph’s illusory diorama of a point in time, the diagram or chart’s authoritative organization of fact. My primary concern is to re-imagine the human body – in relation to its own assumed/perceived structure, as well as to “others” (other bodies, spaces, systems). In my montage based work, each image is the intersection of two layers: one a figure photographed with limited control (underwater or in a pitch dark studio), the other a found photograph or textbook illustration. In combining two often contradictory vocabularies, I aim to subvert their ostensible subject while harnessing their respective power(s).”
-Robert Flynt