Body Copy

From a data set of one thousand lines of found text collected from male same-sex hook-up sites, Moreno chose over forty adverts and attempted to create ‘ideal’ responses through self-portrait. Acting as stylist, set decorator, subject and photographer, each image was made on a shoe-string budget in a corner of the artist’s flat. 

Moreno is in recovery from body dysmorphic and eating disorders, and the project began as a means of addressing the crisis of being photographed and of seeing themselves. Moving beyond the psychotherapeutic, the series explores how queer masculinities are unstable constructions, rooted in material and digital cultures and inextricably linked to the interests of neoliberalism.

Mitchell Moreno is a working-class, genderqueer artist from Leicester, UK. Their work explores the queer gaze, the performance of masculinities, and art-as-therapy.

Moreno studied at Cambridge University and the Royal Academy of Music, before working for over a decade in theatre, opera, and circus, as a performer and director. After a hiatus from work due to a major mental health crises, they began to reengage with creative practice via photography, in which they are self taught.

They live in London, and support themselves by working as a builder and decorator.