The cowboy is one of the most enduring figures of masculine desire, built from self-reliance, physical labour, open country and a life lived largely among other men and animals.
The queer subtext is hard to miss: tight denim, leather chaps, long stretches of isolation, the absence of women. Queer artists and audiences have claimed him for decades, from Tom of Finland’s drawings to the Village People to Brokeback Mountain.
The Ranch takes stakes a claim through photography. Traditional homoerotic nudes wearing little more than a cowboy hat, boots or a smidge of leather, portraits that treat desire as something to own rather than apologise for. The sitters are LGBTQIA+ people of different ages, bodies, genders and backgrounds, so the cowboy is no longer one lean, white, straight man on a horse.
The myth of the cowboy plays on the isolation of the lone rider with nobody to answer to.
This project offers the opposite: a ranch with room for everyone, where the fantasy is shared rather than solitary.
Wanna join The Ranch? Get in touch here.
