From Ellyn Kail’s article reviewing the Photographic Resource Center’s 20th anniversary exhibition, “Exposure,” including artworks by Lissa Rivera:
Each image in Rivera’s Beautiful Boy is a collaboration. She feels the weight of the confidence BJ has placed in her hands, and in turn, BJ feels entirely safe with her: “From the first moment we met I trusted Lissa. It’s weird, but it wasn’t something that had to be gained.”
When Rivera first introduced the photographs publicly, she admits, “some people discouraged me, suggesting that there were ‘too many artists exploring gender,’” but she was simply unable to stop making pictures with BJ. This story was one that could not be told by anyone else but the two of them, and the mere thought of leaving everything unsaid was “too painful” for the photographer.