What does it mean to be “masculine” right now? The word traditionally has been associated with strength, assertiveness, dominance and leadership. These days, however, this definition is being questioned as insufficient, rigid and sometimes even harmful. It’s common to see another word — “toxic” — in front of it.
A new exhibition at the InLiquid Gallery in Olde Kensington, “In the Soft Light,” offers its own powerful take of what masculinity can look like.
The show’s walls are covered in photos from three queer photographers of different generations — T.W. Moore, German Ayala Vazquez and Robert Carter — who highlight the male form through a gentle and intimate lens. From the ceiling hangs sculptural chandeliers from, Michael Biello, another LGBTQ artist who literally brings the “soft light” into the room.
The idea for the exhibition first came about two years ago after InLiquid displayed a collection of Biello’s pieces from the 1980s. The goal was to curate an exhibition centered around masculine love, intimacy and tenderness.
“We wanted to pair other artists with Michael and bring that theme to life,” said Andreina Mijares Cisneros, the show’s curator and InLiquid programming coordinator. “It was important to show masculinity through the lens of these three photographers, who are queer and gay identified.”
“You see work that is new from 2025,” she said, as well as work from the “1980s, showcasing a moment in which the AIDS epidemic was at its peak.”
The idea of using lamps, dimmers and soft lighting — instead of stark overhead fixtures — has in itself become associated with gay aesthetics in pop culture. Biello’s sculptural chandeliers are whimsical, involving elements like hanging beads, monkey figurines and forms inspired by Italian architecture.
Moore, Ayala Vazquez and Carter each have a different approach to capturing the male body in their photos, but throughout their work skin is celebrated and on display.
The men in the photographs are fit and muscular. Some of them pose like pin-up figures, while others wear luxurious fabrics and expensive-looking jewelry. Some male bodies aren’t clothed at all. Still, while the show has erotic elements, it is not shocking or hypersexual. Instead, each male body feels as if it’s treated with delicacy and care. The viewer is here to take in beauty.
“We don’t often get to see how gay men and queer-identifying men see their partners and how they find sensuality in the male body,” Mijares Cisneros said. “I think that that’s mostly been reserved for the woman.”
“You know, as a gay man, I totally am drawn to the masculine, just by nature,” said Moore, 69, a longtime collaborator of Biello’s. “The whole show celebrates beauty as a concept — a valid concept for artwork.”
Some of Moore’s photographs in the gallery date back to the 1980s. Others are from the last five years. He has lived through two very different pandemics, both of which play a role in the show. Earlier images feature soft, black-and-white portraits of men with their faces obscured, appearing almost ghostlike. His more recent photos involve interspersed collages of male bodies and nature.
“It could be part of nature, or it’s one with nature,” Moore said. For example, one photograph created shortly after the COVID pandemic, he explained, “symbolized that moment of deterioration, but also hope and people helping each other. Trees are sort of like relationships bound together.”
While Moore’s color palette leans soft and ethereal, the works of Ayala Vazquez and Carter burst with saturated colors. Ayala Vazquez’s color photography is lush, with certain subjects staged to seem as if they are in a Garden of Eden. Even his black-and-white work feels striking — defined by stark contrast. One model’s body is ink-black, posing powerfully against a bright white backdrop.
Even when models in this show stand in softer, delicate, elegant stances — words typically associated with the feminine — they remain masculine. Carter hopes that photography in general will be honored and elevated to the level of classical paintings.
“I studied old masters and grew up around a lot of color,” said Carter, who is 35. “And so I try to incorporate vibrancy, depth and richness of color in a lot of my work. Even if there’s a lot of darkness, there’s still some pops of reds and blues.”
One of his photographs — a picture of a Black man in a luxurious velvet blue turban and pearls draped around his neck — evokes a Vermeer.
“I hope that [people] appreciate that photography and traditional fine arts like painting share a lot of similarities,” he said. “I think of it as painting with just a different medium, and I hope people can walk away feeling like they’ve received something vibrant and meaningful.”
“In the Soft Light” is open now and runs until May 31 at the Crane Arts Building. The show is a love letter to masculinity from different generations of queer men.
“I wanted to show that there’s a lot of tenderness in loving a man,” Mijares Cisneros said. “Not necessarily from another gay man, but as a whole. I think that there can be softness, there can be tenderness that exists, and not only in gay relationships.”
To artists like Moore, celebrating male bodies in this way couldn’t come at a better moment.
“It’s definitely the time of the manosphere,” Moore said. “You know, men are on the rise. It’s the tough man. It’s the manly man, and I think what I’m attempting to do here is to show the other side of the manly man.”
