Showcasing Chloe Rose Thomas and tattoo artist Eilish Hazell's non-binary bodies in conversation with the lineage of queer photographic art, community and family, this work interrogates how queer individuals care for and hold each other through lives that bear less traditional timelines and milestones.
“Can I hold you? Can I get you to look at an image for longer than a second? Can I allow you to think about skin? And expression? And light?” – Catherine Opie
Can I hold you? Can I get you to look at an image for longer than a second? Can I allow you to think about skin? And expression? And light?
In response to Catherine Opie’s 1993–1994 photographs, Self-Portrait/Cutting and Self-Portrait/Pervert, this work re-examines the contemporary queer body in relation to non-familial relationships and the subcultural practices that make gender-diverse lives more liveable. Where Opie’s self-portraits explored how motherhood and queer bodies, blood and flesh could be the vessels of not only transgression, but also that of witness, care and protection; this work explores similar themes through the permanent marking of the artist’s body via queer tattooing.
Please join us to celebrate the opening of this exhibition at First Site Gallery, 5– 7pm, Wednesday 20 May.
Chloe Rose Thomas is a video artist, photographer and researcher concerned with the agency of images and the legacy of queer self-representation. Often in conversation with the work of other artists and writers, Thomas blends pop culture moments, personal family footage, video self-portraiture and fine art references, creating video montages that explore identity, gender and the queer body.
Their work encompasses performance, writing and the history of art to deconstruct the surface of images and explore what happens when disconnected things touch. Currently doing their PhD, they are researching the evolution of photographic self-portraiture into contemporary ‘selfie’ culture and the consequences this has for LGBTQ+ identity formation.
Thumbnail and banner image: Chloe Rose Thomas Self-Portrait/1993, (video still) 2026. Single-channel digital video. Image courtesy of the artist.
Quote: Catherine Opie
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'Portable Stillness' (2025), is an ongoing spatial installation that explores how the making of miniature objects and floating altar-like displays can express memory, collection, and the domestic in transition. Motivated by the instability of diasporic living and continual relocation, Ko Jou Chen constructs handmade structures that carry memory and presence across her shifting environments.
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Chloe Rose Thomas’ exhibition, 'Can I Hold You?' centres on queer community and embodied practices of care, exploring what it means to take traditional photographic portraits of non-normative bodies and the histories they represent.
RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.
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