J.A. Bilhan’s “Personal Search For Beauty And The Sublime”

Describing his work as “informal anthropology”, Bilhan trains his camera upon the “ways we communicate, sexualize, live in and shape our environments”. This interest was borne from his upbringing; raised in an evangelical Christian family in southern Texas, he explains that his life as a queer afro-“My desire directs my work so the ways I express myself will naturally remain fluid.”Mexicano boy came “with its own set of social challenges” that both “eroded” and “shaped his identity”. Homeschooling allowed him to develop his creative practice from a young age—and the attitude with which he approaches his photographic work he attributes to this education: “My desire directs my work so the ways I express myself will naturally remain fluid.”