Matthew Blaise

German artist Wolfgang Tillmans has for decades explored the multiple possibilities of images, mainly through the medium of photography, which he constantly brings into conversation with other disciplines. The portrait is a recurring genre for Tillmans. Some are the result of a slow, meticulous preparation, while others emerge from unexpected encounters, the whole testifying to a complex approach to individual identity. Here, the artist has photographed Matthew Blaise, a queer activist based on Lagos involved in the fight against homophobia in Nigeria. The grain of the print, the materiality of the photograph, mounted onto an aluminium sheet, are all aspects that Tillmans uses to play with the codes of realist, painted portraits.