These photographic self-portraits feature Carlos Motta performing fictive characters for the camera in eerie, constructed landscapes. The images depict scenes where his body, sex, and gender are malleable props transformed beyond recognition. In these early photographs, Motta experiments with the representation of sexual alterity, the elasticity of identity, and the politics of difference, unknowingly anticipating the themes that he currently engages in his practice.

Installation views at PPOW Gallery, New York (2016)
Archival inkjet prints, 30 x 45″ and 16 x 20″