»I want my work to transcend time«

MYP Magazine:
With your art, you’ve always focused on the interaction of the human body with nature. What is your personal desire behind this approach?

Alex Stoddard:
Pure nature is incredibly beautiful. I’ve also found so many connections between humans and nature in the very physical sense, but in a way that certain natural elements can elicit an emotion in me, which probably applies to other people as well. Flowing water, for example, can have a very calming effect on people. I think that humans and nature are tied intrinsically to each other. Apart from this, nature is always a very timeless place to shoot. I want my work to transcend time. I don’t want it ever to be nailed down to a particular period by outfit or location. So, I like to shoot with clothing that’s very simple and nondescript, and in locations where it could be any time or place. That’s ambiguous, and I feel like that gives it a more universal aspect.

MYP Magazine:
Does the damage to nature caused by human-induced climate change affect your work in any way?

Alex Stoddard:
Absolutely! Something I explore in quite a few of my photos is the human impact on nature—topics like how we are affected by species extinction, deforestation, or pollution. Some of my photos, for example, show me with a dead fish washed up on a beach, or myself flying among a bunch of chopped-down trees in a very deforested area. That’s something I really want to dive into more with my work in the future, beyond just creating something that is beautiful. I definitely want to explore more the topics of climate change and human impact on nature with my images. I want them to have some real-world impact, to bring more awareness, and hopefully give a more emotional tone to the fact that we are really destroying the planet.

MYP Magazine:
You’ve been working as an artist for more than a decade. What did you learn about the human body in general in that time?

Alex Stoddard:
I’ve learned more of an appreciation for it, just through photographing myself and others often nude or in very revealing and intimate situations. That’s why I’ve been wanting to explore shooting more body types and bringing more representation to that. I think that’s important. In art, there’s a place for all body types and the diversity of humans.

MYP Magazine:
As you just said, in many of your pictures, you often show yourself completely nude. How has your art influenced your relationship with your body?

Alex Stoddard:
Honestly, no. I create my art in a very similar way to when I started. And I don’t think I’ve ever really been ashamed of my body and of showing it in that way. So, it’s remained largely the same. I’ve always tried to separate my view of myself from the view of the person I’m photographing. That’s why I see myself as a different person in my pictures. As a result, when I look in the mirror, I often see a character rather than myself. I use my body more as a tool to accomplish a task or to create a certain pose or look in the picture. And I try not to let it reflect on how I view myself outside of the images.

MYP Magazine:
Only at first does the physical nudity in your photos seem to be a form of exposure. The second glance gives the impression of being confronted with a much more emotional form of exposure. Is that the actual definition of nudity for you?

Alex Stoddard:
Yeah, I guess I really do show more of my emotional life in the whole context, like being vulnerable, for example, than simply showing my skin. The physical aspect of nudity is such a tiny part of my work.

MYP Magazine:
Today, the human body often seems to be abused for pure self-expression, especially in social media. This influences many people’s relationship to their bodies because they believe their value is measured by their looks or fitness. Would you say that your images are a counter-position to this dangerous trend?

Alex Stoddard:
Not consciously. I don’t create my artworks intentionally against the sexualization of the body in the way it’s sold and commodified online. It’s just a lucky byproduct of it. But I do agree. I mean, the explore page on my personal Instagram account is also all about hot people with their shirts off. And to be honest, maybe it’s often exactly what I’m clicking on. It’s an instinct, in all of us, isn’t it?
But I kind of get a little annoyed when people use to water my work down to me being naked, using it as a sexual thing, and thinking that I’m being sexual about it or have a kink of exposing myself online with my photos, where I’m portraying myself or my subjects nude in an almost asexual way a lot of the time. It’s more about showing the natural form than looking attractive or trying to get clicks by showing the naked body. And, in fact, it usually works against me, because my posts are often flagged or taken down because they’re showing a little too much skin for certain platforms.

MYP Magazine:
You were born and raised in rural Georgia. What memories do you have of your childhood and youth?

Alex Stoddard:
I actually had a really happy childhood, all things considered. I remember spending all of my time outside. I have many brothers and sisters, and my mom would always tell us that we can’t come in until the sun goes down. So we would spend all of our time outside, like in a spa in the forest and going to the rivers. I think a part of what formed my level of comfort in nature is spending so much time in it. Besides that, I had very supportive parents who were extremely encouraging when I started with photography—and they are still my biggest fans.

MYP Magazine:
In the year 1993, when you were born, President Clinton signed “Don’t ask, don’t tell” into law, which prohibited gay or bisexual people from serving openly in the military. How do you remember growing up as a queer kid in rural Georgia?

Alex Stoddard:
I honestly knew that I was different since I was very young, but I couldn’t really put my finger on it until adolescence. That was when being gay became a part of my life, and I just started to feel different and was kind of drawn to different things. In my later teenage years, I became more and more isolated because the environment where I grew up is very conservative and religious. I think people there labeled me as different before I even knew that myself. That made me retreat into my shell a bit more as I didn’t feel like I fit in. And I loved being alone. So it was kind of a perfect storm for just putting me into isolation.

MYP Magazine:
In the bio text on your website, we read: “Photography became a means of escape, allowing him to construct elaborate scenes and step into the role of different characters through costumes and posing.” What did you want to escape from?

Alex Stoddard:
Well, not so much anything that was happening to me. I wasn’t really bullied or abused in any way, so it wasn’t like a dark escape. It was more of an escape from the mundanity of life. Everyday life inside is depressing, just being connected to your phone, and staring at it all day long; or seeing what’s going on in the news and what tragic events are happening now. Going out into nature is like opening a book. You just forget about your daily life or the stresses and responsibilities that you have.

MYP Magazine:
Isn’t it counterproductive then to move from the countryside to Los Angeles as you did in 2012? It’s a place known more for traffic jams than for untouched nature.

Alex Stoddard:
A little bit. But I always knew that I had to move away one day because I never really fit into my surroundings there—and even more so for my work. I knew that I wouldn’t really have a career if I continued to live where I was. So, when I was 18, I moved to L.A., which was a week after I graduated from high school. It was actually half for work and half for love because I was in a long-distance relationship back then.

MYP Magazine:
In the countryside, there is usually a different social cohesion between people, and friendships also seem to function differently. How did you acclimate socially in Los Angeles?

Alex Stoddard:
The first weeks there were super overwhelming. I mean, I was coming from a place where there were two lanes, one going this way and one going that way. In L.A., I not only found ten-lane freeways. There are also people everywhere—and there’s almost no nature to escape to, which was always the place where I used to go to meditate or to feel a sense of peace. But socially, it was okay because I was in a relationship with someone who lived there, so I kind of just adopted all of their friends and family. It was like gaining a new set of people. That’s why I wasn’t completely alone. I don’t know if I would have had the courage to do that completely on my own if I didn’t know anyone there at such a young age. But I’m glad that I did. And I think it was necessary to enter a new place and immerse myself in something completely foreign and new. That made me much stronger.

MYP Magazine:
Has moving to Los Angeles changed your desires or artistic focus in any way?

Alex Stoddard: (pauses for a moment)
It’s hard to say if moving there did as much as just growing up because adolescence is a time when a lot of different things are happening at once. You can’t really pinpoint what is informing your creative decisions necessarily, but moving there did. That’s what still makes me want to travel more and seek out these smaller towns where there’s a lot of nature around. Where I live now is very urban. As a result, I no longer feel so comfortable in one place and feel the desire to expand and go outside.

MYP Magazine:
Your earlier works seem to be more bloody and violent. Did you get rid of some demons over time?

Alex Stoddard:
I’ve noticed that myself. I used to call my work dark, but I don’t think I’ve created a lot of dark work in the past couple of years. I think I did work through a lot of that and explored it visually. But now, I’ve put it to bed.