Community of Elsewheres

Alice O’Malley is a New York photographer known for her portraits of New York’s most notorious downtown personalities. Community of Elsewheres is a queer intersectional space; a circle of celestial elders and underground angels that speak across generations. O’Malley’s subjects are the artists, poets, eccentrics, and visionaries that inhabit the vibrant 21^st century demi-monde of lower Manhattan. The collection presents a new ecology infused with ambiguous portrayals of gender and sexuality and traces community as an elusive concept, defined not by bloodlines or institutions but by what friends do and make together.

O’Malley’s use of an antique view camera, black-and-white film, natural light studios, and makeshift sets creates a dialogue with the historical conventions of portraiture. She cites E.J. Bellocq’s portraits of prostitutes in New Orleans, c. 1917, as the starting point for her own body of work. Her first subjects were performers she knew from legendary New York nightclubs, such as the Clit Club, Jackie 60, and Club Casenova. The smaller gallery will have a documentary installation of 90’s new york gay nightlife and activism.

Presented in association with Outburst Queer Arts Festival, Alice O'Malley will be in attendance for an artist's talk and an official opening of the exhibition in the gallery on 10th November at 6pm.

Bio 

Alice O’Malley’s photographs have been exhibited internationally and published widely. She teaches at the International Center of Photography in Manhattan and is represented by John Marchant Gallery in Brighton.