THE DOMINION OF KINK: GATA meets Lanee Bird
A self-proclaimed voyeur and pervert, NYC-based photographer Lanee Bird is fearless and unrelenting in her creation of art. Drawing influences from queer and fetish culture while engulfing it all in a hazy 80/90s aesthetic, Lanee Bird has made a big impact on the GATA team. What follows is a conversation with the artist in which we explore the convergence between these special subcultures and dive into the depths of this mysteriously kinky mind.
GATA: Could you tell us a little bit more about who Lanee Bird is and what you are passionate about?
Lanee: I am a multiracial queer photographer and production artist based in Brooklyn NY. I balance my time between a personal fetish photography practice and a commercial career as a video editor and colorist. One practice tends to inform the other and vice versa. I’m passionate about all things related to visual media and art. Lighting design, color palettes, aesthetics, art history and music are all things that keep me excited.
“My own fetishes include high heels, latex, leather garments, leather boots, high femme wear like thigh high nylons and corsets. I derive pleasure from things that objectify the person wearing it.”
GATA: You are a photographer, cinematographer and video editor; How did your relationship with the Visual World start?
Lanee: Being a full time artist has always been a goal of mine since a very young age. I made some statement to my family around age 8 that I would ‘move to New York to be an artist’ and that’s exactly what I’ve done. I’ve always been a creative person and loved playing around within a wide range of mediums. I was an oil painter for many years. I used to do performance art, video art and even spent some time doing textiles and soft sculptures. Production and photography are two things that I dove into when I moved to NYC six years ago mostly as a means to make money, but I ended up really falling in love with the medium.
“I’m a big pervert and a voyeur. My interest in fetish just developed naturally though my porn searches”
GATA: Fashion and fetishism are two of the fundamentals in your photography, why is the relation between them so important to your art and what does this relationship bring to your photography?
Lanee: So many of my personal fetishes are based around the material of a garment or object. Materials such as latex, leather or nylon. Being such a visual person means that I tend to prioritize design and aesthetic over anything else. Fetish fashion is an accumulation of those two things that I love most, i.e. design and material. Fetish wear is all about eroticizing the body. The ratio of a waist to hips with corsetry, the arch of a foot in a high heel or the tease of nylons or fishnets over skin. They’re all used as visual queues meant to seduce the onlooker. My favorite part of creating this type of work is magnifying the beauty of these elements through lighting and composition.
GATA: How did you discover the fetish world and why did you find it so fascinating?
Lanee: I’m a big pervert and a voyeur. My interest in fetish just developed naturally though my porn searches. It never started as a creative pursuit until I started learning about the different facets of fetish content within art history. It created an intersection between my personal kinks with my love for art-making.
GATA: You are really connected with the fetish world on a personal level. Often your models are real life dominatrixes and you have worked with shibari professionals and big brands featuring fetish fashion designers. Is there something special that this community has taught you along the way?
Lanee: I love my kink community so much and I have so much respect for sex workers and what they bring to the world. My work truly wouldn’t exist without them. I appreciate the creative energy exchange when shooting with fem dommes. I enjoy the likemindedness over our mutual attraction to fetish gear. Oftentimes my models will also be artists in their vanilla life and so they’re always excited to try new things on set all in pursuit of producing the best possible image. I find that really exciting!
In terms of community, I’m a more stable and grounded person because of my kink relationships. This community not only allows me to show up as my authentic self, but has also taught me communication skills, boundary setting and new ways of staying present within my body. Grounding can be quite difficult as a queer and as a person of color. The world is heavy and my coping mechanisms can oftentimes be very dissociative. Kink is transformative and opens up different pathways to be connected to myself and my partners.
GATA: Do you personally have a fetish?
Lanee: I have many! Personally speaking, fetish feels very visual while kink feels more action or dynamic based. My own fetishes include high heels, latex, leather garments, leather boots, high femme wear like thigh high nylons and corsets. I derive pleasure from things that objectify the person wearing it. However I’m also a masochist and a bottom so my personal kinks include things like DDLG, bondage, impact play, needleplay, shoe worship, sploshing and more.
GATA: On your website’s INFO section, you define yourself as an indigenous queer photographer. Do you think your background and the queer community has had an influence on your work?
Lanee: Everything visual I’m creating is through a queer lens. I can’t separate myself from it. I think my work looks different from many cis male fetish photographers because of my queerness. There’s a huge aspect of femme worship throughout my work that I think comes through because of my personal appreciation for women and non binary femmes. I inherently have a queer gaze and that viewpoint will forever have an effect on my imagery.
“I love my kink community so much and I have so much respect for sex workers and what they bring to the world.”
GATA: Beside being a video editor, you have worked with worldwide famous brands as a color grading professional. We could say you understand all the colors and how they work with each other, but in your photography a simple palette reigns. Black, white and red prevail. Is there a reason behind this?
Lanee: Colors hold specific meanings. I’m drawn towards stark imagery with a heavy focus on one color, especially red. The color red always feels powerful. It’s sexy, it’s bloody, it’s dramatic. I stay away from oversaturated palettes because I find it distracting to the eye. I also stay away from earth tones or colors that feel too soft.
GATA: In general your personal work gives a gentle wink to early 90s aesthetics, is that something you consciously try to achieve?
Lanee: Absolutely! All of my favourite artists and musicians came out of the 80s and 90s. It’s a heavy influence on the way I craft my photos. Fetish photographers such as Helmut Newton, Doris Kloster, Olaf Martens, Richard Kern, Trevor Watson, Chris Bell, Guy Bourdin and Bob Carlos Clarke are some of my biggest inspirations and they all were creating work throughout that time period.
Speaking again on color palettes, so many of these artists were existing on the fringes of the mainstream art world. Some were also involved in the different alternative subcultures of their time. And generally speaking, alt subcultures tend to lean into darker visuals. My attraction to those stark color palettes is totally due to the type of music I listen to and the fashion I’m drawn towards.
GATA: We know you love art history and music, and these are some areas that really inspire your work, what are your main inspirations in these fields and how do you apply them to your creative work?
Lanee: Music has been so important to my development as an artist. As a medium, it acts as a timestamp for certain moments in pop culture history. The subculture is informed by its music, which is then informed by whatever is happening politically, culturally or technologically. I think everything coming out of the 80s and 90s was doing something really interesting in terms of artistic techniques and aesthetics.
GATA: Cinema is probably something that inspires you too, is there any film that you especially like or that has impacted you strongly?
Lanee: The Hunger is probably the biggest cinematic influence on my work. It’s both dark and beautiful. There are parts of the direction and editing which are quite surrealist. I’m obsessed with the cinematography throughout the film. There are so many scenes where the light just feels so atmospheric, rather than anchored to anything naturalistic. I try to create things with a similar attitude when drawing out a concept for a photoshoot. The more drama, the better!