Majd is reflecting on his path into photography ahead of his first solo exhibition, curated by Marley Trigg Stewart, at Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York. There, he is showing a selection of just over 20 works from Hard Feelings, a series he describes as \u201cthe foundation of my practice\u201d. The project began in 2015, the year that Majd, who\u2019d taken a break from the skate and graffiti scene to work and attend college, decided to pursue photography seriously. \u201cI had never seen anyone succeed in photography who looked like me. I didn\u2018t go to school for it, never had a mentor, never interned or assisted. So [at that point] I was like, \u2018You know what? I\u2018m going to take this seriously for myself.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a local skatepark, he encountered an old friend, James, snapping an impromptu portrait with his point-and-shoot camera. A week later, James died suddenly \u2013 an event that prompted Majd to reconnect with his former community, now all the more united in their grief. \u201cIt\u2019s an insular graffiti crew in Queens,\u201d he says, \u201cand they were the first ones to really encourage me to make images.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Before that, Majd notes, photography was an entirely self-motivated endeavour, inspired by his admiration for the unflinching, diaristic work of Nan Goldin<\/a> and his love of film (favourite directors include Andrea Arnold<\/a>, Gaspar No\u00e9<\/a>, John Cassavetes, Gus Van Sant<\/a>, Claire Denis<\/a>). Now, he had an entire community cheering him on \u2013 \u201cI think a bit of it was the id, or the ego; they wanted to be photographed\u201d \u2013 and a determination to create what he terms a \u201crecord of truth\u201d for himself and his friends. \u201cI went from taking a hundred rolls a year, if that, to 300 rolls per year,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n By the end of 2016, Majd\u2019s friends had given him \u201call access to their lives\u201d \u2013 and a full spectrum of moments and emotions, from celebration to mourning, from boredom, bonding and creativity to passion, substance misuse and violence. \u201cSimilar to how I\u2019d never seen someone succeed in the arts or photography who looked like me \u2013 being Palestinian-American, being from New York \u2013 I\u2019d never seen a predominantly male friend group, and predominantly men of colour, be represented in this way,\u201d he says. Much like his hero Nan Goldin, Majd also cites mythology as a key reference. \u201cI really frame Hard Feelings around the idea of an odyssey, a ten-year hero\u2019s journey,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd that mode of storytelling allows me to mythologise the stories of these young men of colour, which we have been told don\u2019t matter, to this elevated space of high art.\u201d His distinct vernacular \u2013 \u201cthe surreal, truer-than-true embodiment of a moment\u201d \u2013 while candid and impromptu, is a deliberately non-photojournalistic, anti-voyeuristic approach, he notes. \u201cIf it were photojournalism, viewers would be detached from what\u2019s occurring and would not truly connect to it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Indeed, as with so many great works of art, it is the intensely personal nature of Hard Feelings that makes it so piercingly universal. As a viewer, we are right there at the party as sobriety descends into hedonism, lounging on the bed, hugging through grief, or experiencing the different faces of masculinity, so often masked or suppressed in a world where vulnerability is branded a weakness. <\/p>\n<\/a>
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Rissa (Battered), 2018\u00a9 Dean Majd<\/p>\n
As the series progressed, a natural visual language evolved. \u201cThe style was really defined by the lifestyle \u2013 the fact our world took place at night, that it\u2019s a very kinetic, on-the-fly, interpersonal environment.\u201d The raw and soulful nature of the pictures is almost always heightened by the effects of electric lighting, for instance, which at times bathes subjects in a golden glow, as in Rissa (Battered) or Ivan Crying in My Bedroom, or casts a neon haze over the scene, as in Hyper Dark or Self-Portrait (Hard Feelings). \u201cMy love for colour goes back to cinema,\u201d Majd says, \u201cand in terms of dramatic lighting, I\u2019m deeply inspired by Baroque painters, specifically Caravaggio.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>
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Heaven\u2019s Gate, 2019\u00a9 Dean Majd<\/p>\n
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Eni and Amal Embracing After Suba\u2019s Wake, 2020\u00a9 Dean Majd<\/p>\n