Artist Statement and Brief Bio

To photograph is to consume. To look and then judge. To take ownership and “capture” those in front of the camera’s lens. A “keepsake” or memento. Something to have, control and metaphorically keep at bay. As a medium often employed by those in power, photography has a history of objectifying those who have less agency, reside on society’s margins, or omit them from history and popular narrative.

Using an understated yet radical approach that includes portraiture, landscape, and studio practice, Lorenzo Triburgo reclaims this power for LGBTQ communities and other individuals traditionally ignored by media and popular culture or conquered by an outsider’s gaze. Working in collaboration with his subjects, Triburgo amplifies their voices to an audience that might otherwise ignore them or keep them at safe aesthetic distance.

His series, Transportraits, has been exhibited widely in major cities across the United States, Europe and Asia and won first place in the gender category in the international photography competition, the Pride Photo Award in 2012. He was awarded a Project Grant through the Regional Arts and Culture Council of Portland, OR for his current project Policing Gender that examines mass incarceration from a queer perspective. Triburgo exhibits this project at learning institutions throughout the U.S. and hosts workshops regarding the radical, transformative act of becoming a pen pal with LGBTQ-identified incarcerated individuals.

Triburgo has work in the permanent collection at the Portland Art Museum and has been published and written about in various web and print journals including PDN, Slate, The Huffington Post, and the website for The Transgender Studies Reader 2, edited by Susan Stryker and Aren Aizura, and published by Routledge. He holds a BA from New York University in Photography and Gender Studies and an MFA in Photography and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts.

Lorenzo currently develops curriculum and teaches Gender & Sexuality Studies and Art at Oregon State University (online) and lives in Brooklyn, NY.