Thirteen

  • Kish Joseph

  • Thirteen

  • Kish Joseph is a photographer based out of Brooklyn, NY. Born on the island of Cebu in the Philippines, he moved to the US at age 3 along with the three siblings. The current themes of his recent works reflect an introspective investigation on his upbringing as a closeted homosexual Asian immigrant living in suburban America through portraiture. Inspired by photographers such at William Eggleston, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, and Larry Sultan, Kish creates staged images of his memories encouraging the viewer to question the reality of the image along with the reality of the viewers own memories.

  • “Thirteen” is an introspective project that invites the viewer into my past experiences. In the summer of 2019, I reflected on my queer male gaze and how much it had shifted within the last four years. Shifts have catalysts and what the catalysts were that fueled the changes in my gaze was something I never thought twice about. I began thinking back as far as I could remember to all of my past sexual experiences, sexual experiences specifically because I see them as the climax of me fulfilling my desire. I narrowed down my experiences to thirteen and began planning how I could reimage these moments in my past. I am a photographer who makes work utilizing natural light, but as these images are reenactments of past moments, I decided that using artificial light was what this project needed. Through different methods of artificial lighting, I create small scenes of these memories. My use of color and gesture gives the viewer just enough information to enter the surreality of these moments with me while simultaneously remaining ambiguous enough to allow them to draw different conclusions about my past.