ANTHONY GEBREHIWOT - EXPOSURE INTERNATIONAL OPEN CALL

From Boys to Men seeks to communicate without language in an intimate and vulnerable way: through photography, he portrays the vocabulary of race, masculinity, history, perception, and vulnerability. From Boys To Men: The Road To Healing is a visceral display of Black masculinity that exposes the necessary labour of unpacking learned behaviour attached to childhood trauma. Combining contrasting landscapes, Black bodies, and raw human emotion, Gebrehiwot explores the affective power of Black bodies in confronting the viewer's humanity and empathy. The photographs, arranged in a non-linear configuration, aims to destabilize the distinction between past, present, and future. Gebrehiwot's unique visual language extends across temporal sensibilities to trace the thread of trauma to the root. The metaphors meant through the selection of colour, texture, and emotional expression encourage the viewer to place themselves in the poetry of masculine fragility.

Anthony's artistic exploration stems from his work with Black/pan-African diaspora communities in Toronto. As the resident photographer at R.I.S.E. Edutainment (Reaching Intelligent Souls Everywhere), Gebrehiwot has intimately witnessed and documented the creative and unguarded evolutions of poets, musicians, and artists from across the city. Based in Scarborough, Gebrehiwot has worked to bring photography to youth in communities through organizations like the NIA Centre, The Power Plant, and Toronto Community Housing. His connection to youth and community, combined with his sustained self-dissection and constant desire to evolve, helped him to identify masculinity as a focal topic for photographic inquiry. His artistic exploration of masculinity stems from community conversations on toxic masculinity, as well as his own self-analysis of past relationships. Gebrehiwot identified the healing of the inner child as a seminal experience necessary to embrace and understand the hardened and misunderstood spaces of the heart/soul.

BIOGRAPHY

Anthony Gebrehiwot is an award winning visual artist, photographer and community leader whose creative lens re-visions photography as an ongoing dialogue of social change between subject and society.

A self-taught artist and photographer, Gebrehiwot founded XvXy-photo in 2014 focusing on studio portraiture. To date, he has worked with several notable brands such as Nike, Royal Bank of Canada, Vice Canada, Absolute, Hudson Bay, The City of Toronto and Linkedin to name a few. His work has been featured in over thirty local and international publications such as the Star, the Globe and Mail, PAPER Magazine, Elle UK and Yahoo Lifestyle.