Sunday Spotlight: Aurele Gould

Project Title: Offense and Defense as Top and Bottom as Strength and Weakness

Artist Statement: Aurele’s images derive from a personal desire to create a thesaurus of visual language for non-men. As intangible, light-based concepts, they analyze how ‘inversion’ and ‘glare’ can be used to weave between a constructed reality and a lived experience. Celebrating non-male masculinity includes imagery of strong, muscular bodies, skin that sweats, bends, gets dirty, and the tension in actions completed with another person. From this, moments of transference between women are observed through objects like pre-wrap and carabiners, which center care, intimacy, and the complex appearance that ‘queer aesthetic’ unfolds itself to be. Their practice documents those Aurele is closest with, in ways that honor their loved ones and the ephemeral space where the photograph is taken. For all time, their imagery exists as a love letter to all the masc women/non-binary people in their life.

Bio: Aurele Gould is an image-maker based in Richmond, VA with a BFA in Photography from Virginia Commonwealth University received in 2019. They have also received the 2020-2021 Professional Fellowship Award from the VMFA and Distinguished Photographer Award from Alex Klein of the ICA Philadelphia. Currently, they are a part of the Studio Access Residency at the Visual Arts Center in Richmond, VA.

You can find more of Aurele’s work on their website and Instagram.