Jesse Glazzard: LGBT+ Letters

Year: 2018-19
Medium: Film photography
Dimensions: variable
Brief biography: b. 1993, Halifax. Currently lives & works in London


Jesse Glazzard is an artist from West Yorkshire. His work deals with class, sexuality and gender politics; in an intimate reflection of the “LGBT+ community and way beyond that”.

In 2017, he founded Moist Collective, a space for queer womxn and non-binary artists to show their work. Up until now, he has focused on film photography and self-portraiture – in December 2019 he put on Porridge, an intimate exhibition of self-portraits taken with his girlfriend Nora Nord.

Glazzard graduated from BA Fashion Image Making and Styling at the University of Salford in 2018. After taking part in our Graduate Scholarship scheme, he has gone on to a successful photographic practice – with clients including Vice, Dazed, and i-D magazines.


The LGBT+ Letters series

 

Artist Statement:
Jesse’s own coming-out at secondary school was fraught with the fear, and harsh reality, of violent backlash. But it was also hampered by what Glazzard saw as a complete lack of queer visibility. He had simply no experience of how to become queer. Glazzard’s first cultural experience of queer romance was of a single ‘chaste, lesbian kiss’ on the popular soap opera EastEnders at the age of 9.

While LGBTQI representation in popular culture has improved, Glazzard describes still seeing many stale stereotypes, which this photographic work seeks to rectify. LGBT+ Letters is an attempt at providing, through portraits and texts, queer aesthetics for people who find themselves without meaningful representation in the world. In the photography series, Glazzard demonstrates a lack of self-indulgence rather a strong belief in accommodating to his subjects’ individualities, and ultimately to build trust, capture intimacy, educate and inform.

Selected images:

an artists photograph of a person who identifies as queer. The person has medium length red hair, a black tshirt, and they are holding a blonde wig. They are looking calmly towards the camera. They are stood outdoors.

Jesse Glazzard, Blake, (2018-2019). Film photograph

Part of an artwork.This is a handwritten note on paper which discusses community and belonging. The note ends with: ""Something as little as seeing someone who looks like me or shares similar experiences can be the most validating and beautiful thing"

Jesse Glazzard, Blake, (2018-19). Photograph