Billy Maynard: Trans/Tender

Overview

Not many people, let alone many 19-year-olds, can say they've spent four months immersed in a Catholic community of transsexual prostitutes. But Australian photographer Billy Maynard isn't your average teenager — he caught the isolated peoples on camera during a trip to East Timor last year, and is now shedding light on them in his debut exhibition Trans/Tender at the Damien Minton Gallery's Annex Space.

Shot entirely in darkness on black and white film, Maynard's gritty photographs depict undeniably human moments that are the rare product of a remarkable amount of trust between artist and subject. In this case gaining that trust meant a complete, almost naive immersion into this impoverished community. Indeed Maynard admits to finding unlooked-for friends amidst the mud, rain, heat and sex of the tiny island — most notably a woman called Peppe, whom he admires for her ability to turn the straightest men in uniform into salivating animals.

The candidness and sexual ambiguity that Peppe epitomises are evident in each of Maynard's 17 photographs — whether a moonlit face, a naked body, or a pile of crumpled bedding. It's almost as if there's only one wall separating the Damien Minton gallery from the anxiety-ridden East Timor island, and you’ve just poked a hole through it — though actually, a 19-year-old did that for you.