Movement, Visuals, and Sound by Dustin Maxwell
Artist Interview
Natural Pursuits (NP): As this is a queer nudist publication, let’s get this out of the way. Tell me about your personal relationship with casual nudity.
Dustin Maxwell (DM): I love being naked and especially in the summer, but usually only when I’m alone. Sometimes, if I’m in a place that feels right I’ll go nude but not usually. It feels like an event (even though once the clothes come off it feels normal).
NP: It’s surprising to me that you’re normally private about your nudity as I’ve seen you perform several times and nudity is frequently involved Tell me about how nudity plays a part in your work.
DM: I use nudity in my art in different ways and for different reasons. Sometimes I use it as a way of expressing openness and vulnerability, at other times it simply feels more sculptural. Sometimes it’s in the effort of accepting my body as it is by just letting it be seen as it is.
I’ve also used it as a way of objectifying a male body instead of the usual objectification of a female body. In this film, Time, I use it as a way of expressing the feeling that my natural body unclothed is a landscape like a mountain with peaks and plains – simply a part of the earth.
NP: I love that. Can you tell me more about your inspiration for the piece?
DM: I was originally inspired by this pool of sunlight. I just wanted to bathe in it, letting the sun touch my whole body. So, I did, and it brought up this feeling of being like the earth – steady and still while everything else moves around it. Continuous movement and stillness at the same time. It gave a feeling of being ancient and at the same time always new.
NP: Tell me more about this sun-dappled inspiration.
So, when I first shot the footage of the sun moving over me I got an erection and it was kind of beautiful because my erection rose and fell, my breath rose and fell, the sun passed over me – it was this poly-rhythmic landscape which is really what I was wanting to express – alas! no erections allowed.
NP: Listen! I love erections. Each and every one of them are beautiful, majestic, and should be celebrated. I’m just afraid of being de-platformed.
DM: No matter how many times I tried to reshoot the light passing over me it just never happened in the same way. So, I was trying to find ways of covering my erection, ha!
NP: [Laughs] Just like an everyone with a penis in middle school.
DM: I chose these images where there was clear juxtaposition of stillness and movement – the clouds moving behind the rock, the bushes blowing in front of the tree trunk… In the end, I cut the erection and chose some movement and overlays because it felt better.
NP: For the record, I hate the phrase “cut the erection”. I feel very guilty, but the resulting piece is wonderful.
Time
NP: Can you tell me about the sound throughout the piece?
DM: In the original footage you can hear me talking to my friend about ideas for the film, using these shots and then the shot of my body and explaining why but you couldn’t hear him. It sounded like I was talking on the phone to someone and I really liked the casual, intimate feeling of that.
So, I decided to use the natural sounds with a pinch of the intimate voice. I wanted to tell the story of the tree that lives at the top of the mountain because I was so struck by the beauty of it standing there through time, unmoved and completely part of the whole. I hoped that it might inspire the viewer, too. Trees are great teachers.
NP: Every time I’ve been lucky enough to see your work, I’ve been struck by the slow, intentional movement. It felt especially prominent in this piece.
DM: I love to move slowly. Dance is active contemplation for me. And often a meditation – meaning no mind – absorbed in the experience. I move slowly because of the way it distorts perception of time and how that can take us out of the regular state of the mind into someplace else… daydreaming, memory, contemplation, meditation, beyond… I also think of my performance work as visual art rather than dance – though it is dance, I’m not interested in entertainment.
I’m interested in contemplation and altering states of mind. I believe strongly in the power of slowness and I think it’s the antidote most people need. While I recognize watching my work can take patience that’s not always available, if you can fall into that state with me, I think it can be very healing, breath-giving. I hope.
About the Artist:
Dustin Maxwell is a bodysourced and movement based visual artist living in Brooklyn, New York. His art and life are centered around spirituality, sexuality, death, and the magic of being. His research is filtered through performance, video and drawing. He is a 2019 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow.
Website:
Instagram: @trashpatty_moonbone