Celebrating Identity: The Multifaceted Photography of Stephen LaReign Hues.

Publicationa and Exhibitions of Photography: Stephen LaReign Hues is a Los Angeles based artist and producer who bridges disciplines and generations. During the 1990s in Montreal, Stephen thrived at the intersection of dance, costume design, photography, and drag performance — always with a camera in hand. Over that decade, they built an extraordinary archive of more than 30,000 images, capturing a pivotal era’s vibrant energy, and artistic and political pulse.

Today, in collaboration with independent curator and writer David Liss and Martha Carter of Marta Marta Productions, they are advancing an exciting vision: to bring this extraordinary archive to life through books, exhibitions, and creative partnerships. The first in this series is an evocative art book, REFLECTION, that serves as a lens to explore the social, political, and cultural themes that define and challenge us.

REFLECTION consists of 94 black-and-white photographs by Stephen LaReign Hues, spanning 130 pages, with bilingual English and French texts by Stephen, Martha Carter, and David Liss. The first in a projected series of publications and exhibitions cultivated from Stephen’s archives, the photographs gathered in REFLECTION are from staged shoots, including self-portraits, gender benders, non-conformists, dancers, go-go boys, and Drag Queens of the 1990s.

In my work, I strive to create a harmonious interplay between masculine and feminine energies, both within my photographs and within myself. This delicate balance is a reflection of the multifaceted nature of identity, transcending traditional binaries and celebrating the fluidity of self-expression. Through careful composition and a deep understanding of my subjects, I endeavor to capture the full spectrum of their personas, highlighting the intricate dance of strength and vulnerability, boldness and tenderness. This pursuit is not only an artistic endeavor but also a personal journey, as I navigate my own relationship with these energies, seeking to embody the same authenticity and resilience that I so admire in my friends.

The photos in this book are a reflection of my friends and I exploring the diversity of possibility and the possibility of diversity during the queer 1990s. In this collection, I moved from the clubs and street documentation into the studio to capture the soft intimate mysterious beauty of my friends and myself pushing the gender boundaries before many of the current words around gender identity and sexuality existed. It is a reflection of the times  – of what I saw through the lens; the beauty, the glamour, the gender fluidity, the love, the laughs, the joy, the sorrows, the sensuality, the sexiness, and the individual and collective dreams. 

Photos from REFLECTION