Lío Mehiel and Wynne Neilly

For angels of a drowning world, multidisciplinary artist Lío Mehiel invited photographer Wynne Neilly to join them in a three-day excursion to the Bombay Beach Biennale, a renegade arts festival set in a partially abandoned desert town on the shores of a manmade, toxic lake called the Salton Sea. The two entered the lake, Wynne with protective gear and Lío without, and together, they created both a durational performance piece for those passing by, as well as a series of images that propose a synergy between the fight for body autonomy and the fight to protect against climate collapse. 

The series’ classical art motifs hearken to the ancient history of gender nonconforming bodies that has been left out of the western-colonial archive. The contradiction between the aesthetic beauty of the images and the actual toxicity of the environment mirrors the precarity of being an American today.

Lío Mehiel

Lío Mehiel is a Puerto Rican and Greek transmasculine artist, filmmaker, and performer. Their practice explores “transness” as a philosophy, an orientation towards embodied creativity that extends beyond an individual’s gender expression. 

Lío engages the socialized, emotional body and its flesh as a site of research and a point of inspiration. They center collaboration and improvisation in their work, inviting fellow artists to join them within immersive, often precarious scenarios in which the process of making is just as much a part of the work as the final art object. 

Lío began their career as a professional salsa dancer at the age of seven, and went on to star on Broadway in productions of The Miracle Worker, directed by Marianne Elliot, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Anthony Page. Most recently, they were the first trans actor to win the Special Jury Prize for Best Acting at the Sundance Film Festival for their lead performance in the film MUTT, by writer/director Vuk Lungulov-Klotz.

Wynne Neilly

Wynne Neilly is a Canadian , queer and trans identified, visual artist and award winning photographer who is currently working out of Toronto and Prince Edward County. 

His artistic practice, most often, is an investigation into engaging with the queer and trans identity, both on an individual level and relationally within the community. Wynne’s work, aims to open up a conversation around how we read and interpret intimacy between queer and trans bodies, both in the subject matter itself and from his gaze as the image maker. The content of his work seeks to reveal and support the notion of individuality and non-normative presentations of gender identity as political liberation and personal healing.

Since completing a BFA in 2012, Wynne has continued to focus his practice on investigating and observing the vastness that lies within the individual identity and the outdated ideals of intimacy through portraiture and self portraiture. Over the years, several of his works have been included in exhibitions at The Canadian Lesbian & Gay Archives; Gallery TPW; Joseph Gross Gallery (Tucson); The Art Gallery of Burlington; International Center of Photography (New York); Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles); The Annenberg Space for Photography (Los Angeles); and Sørlandet Art Museum (Norway).