The story behind Tribe's Andrew.
Added 2024-04-25 08:00:04 +0000 UTCAfter having my second gallery show in 2013, a year or so later I was getting the itch to work on another series again. While I really enjoyed that second series, Freedom, the idea of doing studio work and being a bit more conceptual appealed and I hit on the idea of a tribal feel. I had no intention of appropriating any cultures but rather find ways to invoke a more generic tribal feel.
For this shoot starring my mate Andrew I spent quite a few cutting sticks and branches to the appropriate lengths and knotting them all together to form the girdle/belt and face pieces. Thank goodness my housemate at the time was also an artist and he didn't complain.
As you can see, Andrew is a big beefy bodybuilder and very sexy. He was really keen to take part and thankfully had no qualms about being tied up with strings and painted in white clay. Somehow he even avoided damaging his junk with the sticks in the belt.
There ended up being about 16 shoots for this series which was launched entirely online in February 2015. A few of them didn't make the cut for one reason or another, but this one was a favourite. Despite how strong Andrew looks there is a kind of vulnerability to these images which I love.
Check out the full Tribe download here.
