Matto Lucas, Test Shot At Westgay

Matto Lucas

Test Shot At Westgay

2019 (edition of 10)

Archival giclee print

60 x 40 cm framed

$750 

Artist Bio

Artist, (ward-winning photographer 📸) & occasional educator based in Naarm. 🏳️🌈

"10+ years of events, portraits & queer utopias."

More info: https://mattolucasphotography.com + www.mattolucas.com 

Titled after Fiona Buckland’s study on queer world-building, “Impossible Dance” curates a decade of photography documenting pre-COVID queer clubs, punk shows, and underground events across Naarm (Melbourne).

Captured from an insider’s perspective, these anachronistic black-and-white images transition "private" subcultures into the "public" sphere. This act is a deliberate transgression against the systems that seek to erase or whitewash queer identities. By occupying public space, the work empowers historically ostracized communities while inviting outsiders to engage with a culture they may previously have found inaccessible.

My practice interrogates systems of power through the lens of GASD and LGBTQI+ identities. Influenced by documentarians like Nan Goldin, Rennie Ellis, and Joan E. Biren, I aim to archive and celebrate life on the fringes. Moving between performance and photography, my work serves as both an authentic record and a celebration of the spaces where we truly belong.

Artwork Statement

"Test Shot At Westgay" is from the "Impossible Dance" series which has been exhibited at The Victorian Pride Centre, The Substation Billboards and Brunswick Street Gallery and includes works from the past decade of Lucas' queer event space photography documentation. "Test Shot (...)" won the 2019 Picturing Footscray Photography competition. 

More info: https://mattolucas.com/work/impossible-dance-definitive-edition