From Adam Lehrer’s article for Forbes:
The quality of Rivera’s photographs is exquisite. She shoots mainly in natural light and prints in archival colors to achieve the pictures’ rich, Renaissance-esque colors. Rivera and BJ scour vintage stores for beautiful fabrics and decorative clothing for the shoots. The attention to fabric and color can often recall the incredible photography of filmmaker and performance artist Jack Smith, whose obsession with garments stemmed from his grandmother’s work as a costume designer. Early on in the relationship, the couple bonded over Rivera introducing BJ to the queer cinema of Smith, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Kenneth Anger, and the rich use of cinematic color and light remains prevalent in her work at the Beautiful Boy exhibition. “I told him that I wanted to go into a fantasy world and live in that world,” says Rivera about the visual language she has developed with BJ. “A world that is extremely aestheticized, sensual and creative.”
Browse the exhibition “Beautiful Boy” at ClampArt
Browse all of Lissa Rivera’s work at ClampArt