BRIAR M. PINE
Camouflaged
Camouflaged (2024-Present) explores my patriarchal lineage to investigate how masculinities are formed and performed. The project draws parallels between the history of photography and the masculine culture I was raised within, both of which carry traditions rooted in control, dominance and extraction. Through this lens, the series asks how transmasculine identities navigate the pressure to either assimilate into dominant cultural structures or resist them entirely.
In making each portrait, I undergo transformations to question how I dismantle, uphold, or complicate the patriarchal ideologies embedded within American culture. In several photographs, I apply self-camouflaging techniques borrowing from military and hunting culture, as well as natural systems, to explore what it means to be seen as a trans person in the United States. Camouflage is traditionally used to disappear into an environment. I, however, employ it to become hypervisible, confronting the viewer with the expectations and limitations placed on gender presentation.
Throughout the series, I reflect on my lived experience and relationships with the men in my family to explore my place within the familial patriarchal structure. I use personal artifacts such as my father’s hair and my own, hunting and scavenging trophies, testosterone, and family photographs to trace my relationships and history. For example, Self-Portrait With My Father and Brother investigates the rituals and rites of passage that were passed down from father to son. In this photograph, I am holding an image of my father and brother on a hunting trip they take together each fall. My exclusion from these rites creates the space in which this project is born, questioning what is and what is not passed down and imagining alternative masculinities to embody.