Hidden Bodies

Kieran Carl

Growing up as a skinny white boy from the Valleys, neither my friends nor I looked anything like the type of men depicted within advertising in magazines and on social media. My work mirrors the brand but strips away the editorial and excess to isolate these ‘ordinary looking’ men who don’t usually appear in its pages. These everyday men, lifted from within the backdrop of high-fashion settings and photo manipulation, take centre stage in scenarios typically reserved for ‘ideal’ models, challenging viewers to reconsider their perceptions of sex appeal, power, and identity. This project encourages a conversation with its audience about what is defined as masculine and why certain body types are sexualised in ways others are not. My project aims to remind both male and female audiences that masculinity within advertising is manufactured, and not a representation of all men, only the idealised few.