What is photography? Observing, projecting, framing. The practice of Nils Braxen, since 2015 the alter ego of B. L. (1991), can equally be defined in this way. With his specific gaze, he places the ordinary and the authentic on a pedestal, appropriating his surroundings in a highly personal way.
What Braxen creates is art out of necessity, an escape route. It is an externalisation of his self-image and his psychological wiring, which can largely be traced back to sexual orientation and physical limitation/disability. His work compensates for deficiencies, channels urges and frustrations, and glorifies the unattainable.
At least two themes can be identified in his practice. On the one hand, a focus on banality: Braxen gives trivial objects and everyday situations the attention and study they deserve. In doing so, he takes certain concepts inherent to photography as well as our mediatised reality, such as framing and objectification, to absurd extremes. A particular role is reserved for juxtapositions.
On the other hand, there is the celebration of virile masculinity and uncomplicated testosterone. This idée fixe, which Braxen applies both in random encounters and in orchestrated settings, is certainly fuelled by frustrations and deficits, but can also be seen as a critique of the scenes and niches in which he moves. The preoccupation with specific forms of masculinity and physicality in his work testifies to a quest for authenticity, outside the (theatre) laws and codes of conduct specific to the aforementioned scenes and niches.
Both themes can be linked to a broader quest for the unpretentious and the unforced. Braxen took his first steps in photography as a reaction to the contemporary abundance of ‘perfect’ images. Pictures that try too hard to be beautiful fuel his quest to counter this societal obsession with malleability and perfectionism.
Nils Braxen observes and reflects on his urban environment, projects his deficiencies and frustrations, and frames the banal, the authentic and the uncomplicated. The ordinary made extraordinary.