WeHo photographer Stefan Pinto’s “Smoke + Mirrors” exhibit will open Saturday at AC Gallery in Los Angeles
Pinto’s first solo exhibition is supported by Out magazine and the Tom of Finland Foundation. An announcement of the exhibition says it “is filled with flashing-hot strobe lights and fashion focused poses that twist into sublime humanist statements of the sweetest intimacy. Bodies of all shapes and sizes are his canvas. In ‘Smoke + Mirrors,’ Pinto produces a compelling photographic survey, chronicling a post-modern age of multiracial, multicultural and gender-fluid people who inhabit Pinto’s portraits.”
The exhibit is intended to show “different-bodied LGBT and LGBT-friendly people.” There also will be a seven-image XX Room. Its images, according to the announcement, are mostly “NSFW or for Facebook, but highly intimate, tender that effectively captures the vulnerability of people’s innermost desires in a compelling and gripping moment.”
Pinto is a model as well as a photographer. He began his modeling career in 2005 when he was discovered by a model scout in Miami’s South Beach. As a model, he was involved in shoots with photographers such as David Vance, Michael Stokes, Justin Monroe, Mark Henderson and Rick Day. While modeling, Pinto learned photography from the talent side of the camera and started shooting photographs himself. In 2007 he studied with Magnum photographer David Alan Harvey in Oaxaca, Mexico while on expedition with National Geographic. Later that same year his photography would take him on a ten-day journey through Eastern Europe’s Baltic region. His most recent overseas assignment was in 2016 to France, to photograph one of Boisset Winery’s great estates.
His first solo exhibition is sponsored by Out magazine and the Tom of Finland Foundation. An announcement of the exhibition says it “is filled with flashing-hot strobe lights and fashion focused poses that twist into sublime humanist statements of the sweetest intimacy. Bodies of all shapes and sizes are his canvas. In “Smoke + Mirrors,” Pinto produces a compelling photographic survey, chronicling a post-modern age of multiracial, multicultural and gender-fluid people who inhabit Pinto’s portraits.”
The exhibit is intended to show “different-bodied LGBT and LGBT-friendly people.” There also will be a seven-image XX Room. Its images, according to the announcement, are mostly “NSFW or for Facebook, but highly intimate, tender that effectively captures the vulnerability of people’s innermost desires in a compelling and gripping moment. ”
The exhibit runs through March 25. The gallery, also known as Artists Corner, is located at 1546 Highland Ave. near Selma. The opening night event begins at 7 p.m. and runs until 10 p.m. The photos are on view at the gallery from March 5 to 24 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. There will be a closing reception on March 25 from 7 to 10 p.m.
Some images that will be on view are on the pages below.
