'Master portraitist' Jess T. Dugan turns lens on underrepresented subjects

Whether a young subject is lying in a field of violets or posing near a lake, they often look right at the camera while projecting a stillness, even “pensiveness,” as co-curator Eric Lutz says of the new exhibition.

With “Currents 120” at the St. Louis Art Museum, Dugan’s photographs capture light and shadows, couples and individuals, in the continuation of work focusing on desire, connection, intimacy and gender.

“Dugan belongs to a new generation of queer photographers turning a lens on the underrepresented and hard to define — and breathing life into the often heteronormative, often objectifying genre of portraiture,” said an article last year on artnet.com, which called the photographer a “master portraitist.”

More simply, it’s “terrific,” as Hannah Klemm says of Dugan’s work. Klemm, the museum’s associate curator of modern and contemporary art, co-curated the exhibition with Lutz, associate curator of prints, drawings and photographs. It is on view through Feb. 20.

In a world overrun with lovely Instagram images aided by today’s digital cameras, it’s still hard to make “great,” museum-worthy photographs that hint at both intimacy and ambiguity, Lutz says. In fact the museum hasn’t often done exhibitions of contemporary photography, much less by a St. Louis-based artist.

These 20 recent photos are part of Dugan’s “Every Breath We Drew,” a project already a decade old and expected to be a lifelong pursuit.

“The photos are not meant to be didactic in any way,” says Dugan, who uses they/them pronouns and identifies as queer and gender nonbinary. “I’m interested in people bringing to the work what they will.”

At 35, Dugan, who has lived in St. Louis for seven years, has shown in many exhibitions. This fall, not only is their work featured in the “Currents” show, a portrait is also on display at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University.

There, as part of “The Outwin” competition from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, “Jamie and Ann” are photographed reclining topless outdoors. One appears to have lost a breast to cancer.

The SLAM exhibition also shows photos captured in nature and with beautiful light at sunrise or sunset.

The installation is part of the Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Fellowship, which includes the exhibition after a residency at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.

Dugan’s residency was affected by the coronavirus pandemic — another reason to make photographs outdoors. Although locales aren’t identified, Dugan says, many photos were taken in St. Louis parks, including Tower Grove, Forest Park and Creve Coeur Lake. Last year’s “Shira and Sarah” includes a glimpse of the Mississippi River.

The artist describes the process as “slow,” using no artificial lighting and gradually adjusting sitters’ poses. Dugan tells subjects to wear what they feel comfortable in, although the artist prefers more neutral clothes without logos.

One sitter, identified as Oskar, arrives in makeup and jewelry. “He’s really interested in fashion,” Dugan says. “I see what he shows up in and respond to it.”

Other photographs featured at SLAM are self-portraits, including a moody monochromatic one at the Angad Arts Hotel, where Dugan wears a navy top and stands against a rich blue wall. And a few are indoor still lifes. In a photograph of a bed and table, morning light streams through a window as if in a painting by Vermeer.

“It brings art history to bear on a photograph,” Lutz says.

Dugan grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas, moving at age 13 with their mother to Boston, where they came out as gay (a “wonderful place to be a teenager and come of age”).

Now, Dugan lives with their partner and 3-year-old daughter near Tower Grove Park, which they used for exercise, play and work during the pandemic. “I spent many hours a day there for a long time.”

Vanessa Fabbre, an associate professor at the Brown School of social work at Washington University, met Dugan while country line dancing in Chicago, where the photographer was earning an MFA at Columbia College.

Life together in St. Louis has included partnering on the project To Survive on This Shore, an exhibition and book with photographs and interviews of older transgender and queer people from about age 50 to 90.

“That body of work speaks differently to different audiences,” Dugan says. “I think for a younger trans audience ... it became very clear that they had never seen representations of older trans people, and the images really functioned as possibility models and were very hopeful.

“It gave them a roadmap for what their lives could look like.”

What “Currents 120: Jess T. Dugan” • When Through Feb. 20; hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday (closed Monday) • Where St. Louis Art Museum, 1 Fine Arts Drive, Forest Park • How much Free • More info slam.org