CHERRY BLOSSOM

Using medium-format film photography alongside notes, postcards, and other mixed media, non-binary photographer Ryker Allen explores intimacy, emotional trauma, and the fragility of masculinity in their first photo book Cherry Blossom. 

Ryker tells the true story of a fleeting relationship between two young people by documenting the first time they fall in love and the way their friendship complicates everything. This visual narrative is presented in a uniquely designed accordion-style book.

To accompany Ryker’s intimate first monograph, legendary artist and Boston School photographer, Jack Pierson, a pioneer of the style of photography in which Ryker works, leads a cross-generational conversation about queer love and the lens.

Ryker Allen (b. 1997) (they/them) lives and works in New York City.

Jack Pierson was born in 1960 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston in 1984. He lives and works in New York. Pierson has had recent solo exhibitions at the CAC Malaga, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin and the Aspen Art Museum. His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among other museums worldwide. Pierson is represented by Cheim & Read, New York.