Artist Statement:

Genesis is a series of self-portraits that document what it means to be a queer individual today. This body of work shows a genderfluid, androgynous figure that visually aims to break away from the normative/binary gender motifs we are used to seeing in society. The aim of this was to depict something which is a more accurate and accessible representation of what it means to feel “other”. Hence the name of the project, "Genesis", to signal the start of a new way of thinking.

"I wanted to capture something that, for me, was a better representation of what it is like as a queer person as I felt quite unrepresented in mainstream culture. When I look at the work now, I believe it creates a discourse about anyone's relation towards gender/sexuality and no longer just stems from my own narrative on identity. We each perform gender in our own right and I hope that this body of work can address this individually for each person who views it."

Inspired by abstraction and surrealism, Ollie Hayward has organically distorted images by shooting through glass, mirrors and other materials to disrupt the figure. This further adds to the idea that what you are witnessing is both new, undiscovered, and rather alien.