Artist, Catherine Opie: My name is Catherine Opie. I'm an artist who lives in Los Angeles, California.
Dyke is a portrait of my friend Steakhouse, who's a filmmaker. She had tattooed “DYKE” on the back of her neck in 1992. I thought it was like one of the bravest acts that I had seen. Now everybody is tattooed and pierced. But this was what my community was doing at the time period in which I was documenting. Those are markers of queer culture and our ability to to identify each other, as well as to put out in the world a different vision of our bodies.
This is the first time that I chose a fabric background and that was definitely in relationship to a history of painting. Those portraits of the royals had artifacts to describe what the royals did. The artifact is worn on the body here, not within the things surrounding the portrait, but it's actually on the body. Dyke is the subject. Dyke is the title.
Skin is really important. That's why the detail. I want you to feel it. I want the presence. For me, that work is really political. It was about creating visibility.