Heaven is a Prison — Mark McKnight

Reviewers personal copy of Heaven is a Prison

Heaven is a Prison — Mark McKnight

Published by Loose Joint & Light Work

Review by Timothy LeBlanc

In Heaven is a Prison, a book of photography by Mark McKnight, some might initially judge the works as pornographic because of their sexually explicit nature. I would argue against this categorization because, for most, porn is made to titillate or explore the desire of the flesh and what I have gotten from these works is a desire of acceptance, love, and, at its most basic core, care. It is not the act of two people having sex, an act present in the creation of everyone reading this, that makes an act porn but the watching and actions of a viewer.

**© Mark McKnight 2020 courtesy Loose Joints & Light Work**

Mark McKnight, the original “viewer” of the acts and landscapes that bare all for his camera, literally puts care and tenderness on the page in front of you. Starting with the cover, you are shown these feelings everyone hopes to share with someone, it is just that the people sharing it have long been ostracized for merely existing. This may be counter-intuitive since some of the photos have the men utilizing chains, devices of restraint, but in doing so they show each other and all of us a level of trust they have for all involved. They won’t be shamed because of their actions or any hold-ups a viewer may have.

The subjects, Nehemias de Leon and Christopher Barraza, and the artist are all gay men and people of color. For too long, established circles, even in the liberal art world, have shunned or marginalized people for even just one of these two unchangeable biographical traits. Instead, this book celebrates the idea that they should be welcomed in and embraced — their voices add to the conversation of life. Although the images on display show intercourse between two men, a shock to many when simply described as such, they do not shout their presence. They instead speak through the language of poetry.

The ink washes though the bodies like the emotions the two partners, and the millions of couples they represent, share. This is mirrored in the landscapes and the clouds which make up at least half of the images. Independent of the subject, the frames are dominated with a soft silver. These are dotted with sections of black just dark enough that it hides whatever is behind it. At times, this is the inside of a tree trunk, the underside of a rock, or just grass. At other times, it is a man bottom or some other section of flesh. The deepest black, with the most to hide, lays in the photos of the sky with their silver clouds, the blues have darkened holding in their depth everything which cannot be physically visualized.

Even the experience of handling the book as a psychical object itself is an exercise in care that has been hidden and that most may not take the time required to truly feel. The book comes from its publishers, Loose Joints and Light Work, wrapped in a paper printed with a beautiful image of clouds. As a viewer, one must rip through it in an animalistic act, both right at home and diametrically opposed to the works discussed, an act of violence showing one’s yearning for what is inside. Those images are presented on excellent paper, which the publisher has taken the effort to list as Colorplan Ebony Coltskin, Magno Matt, and Cairn Eco White, that has a wonderful feel underhand.

In other reviews and interviews, McKnight’s work has been compared to a variety of artists but there is only one comparison that holds any water to me: Edward Weston. This book, like the best of Weston’s projects represented by the myriad of photos taken in the Oceano Dunes, contains a variety of subjects. One could describe either as sets of landscapes, nudes, skyscapes, or some combination of these. Weston too pulled out emotion hidden deep in shadows exaggerated in printing. The analogous nature between them does not end just in similarities in approach, which very well may just be an unconscious parallel, but with the sure meteoric rise that Weston had and that McKnight is currently experiencing. I recommend everyone who reads this participates in his ascent by adding a copy of Heaven is a Prison to their own collection. Available at Heaven is a Prison by Mark McKnight, published by Loose Joints & Light Work

Heaven is a Prison — Mark McKnight