Exhibition

Backwoods Boys

The Monstrous Masculine By Carter Smith

September 3 - November 28, 2026

Opening Reception:

September 3, 2026
6 - 8 PM PST

Main Gallery

Free to Members and the Public

Backwoods Boys: The Monstrous Masculine by Carter Smith is the first San Francisco solo exhibition by Maine-based photographer Carter Smith, featuring a striking new body of work that explores contemporary masculinity through intimate portraiture. Smith's photographs move effortlessly between realism and fiction, capturing men whose bodies bear the traces of work, desire, vulnerability, and everyday experience. Rejecting polished ideals in favor of honesty and emotional depth, these images challenge conventional notions of the male figure while expanding the possibilities of contemporary portrait photography. Both erotic and deeply human, Backwoods Boys invites viewers to reconsider how masculinity is represented—and how photography continues to shape our understanding of identity, intimacy, and the body.

Throughout the history of photography, the American male has often been portrayed through familiar archetypes—the laborer, the athlete, the soldier, the cowboy, the outlaw. Strength, independence, and physical endurance became defining characteristics, while vulnerability and intimacy were often left outside the frame.

Carter Smith's Backwoods Boys: The Monstrous Masculine by Carter Smith expands that history. His gritty photographs present masculinity as something more fluid, more personal, and ultimately more human. The men who occupy these images are confident yet uncertain, resilient yet exposed. Dirt, sweat, bruises, worn clothing, tattoos, and traces of physical labor become part of their visual vocabulary—not as symbols of hardship, but as evidence of lives fully lived.

Although rooted in portraiture, Smith's photographs resist easy classification. They move freely between documentary observation, cinematic storytelling, fashion photography, and the long tradition of the artistic nude. Rather than choosing one approach, he draws from each, creating images that feel both immediate and carefully constructed. Every photograph acknowledges that identity is never fixed. It is performed, revealed, concealed, and continually reshaped.

The title Backwoods Boys: The Monstrous Masculine by Carter Smith suggests more than a rural landscape. It evokes an America existing beyond familiar narratives—a place where conventional expectations begin to dissolve. Here, masculinity is not measured by dominance or certainty, but by presence. Smith's subjects confront the camera directly, meeting the viewer with expressions that alternate between defiance, curiosity, exhaustion, desire, humor, and quiet introspection. They refuse to become stereotypes, remaining individuals whose stories extend beyond the frame.

Throughout the series, the body itself becomes the central subject. These are not idealized figures presented as timeless icons. They are contemporary men whose skin bears traces of work, pleasure, injury, affection, and experience. Smith embraces those imperfections, understanding that the body records memory as surely as a photograph records light. The resulting portraits possess an unusual honesty, allowing viewers to encounter masculinity as something both physical and deeply psychological.

These backwoods boys offer themselves up for the camera, but the threat of violence and danger never feels that far away. “Part of creating these images was about reclaiming that power over the men / the archetype who scared me (and seduced me) as a queer kid growing up in rural Maine (where all of these images were shot), says Smith.

Smith's work also reflects a broader evolution within contemporary photography. Increasingly, artists have challenged inherited distinctions between fine art, fashion, documentary practice, and queer representation. Backwoods Boys belongs within this expanding conversation while remaining unmistakably Smith's own. His photographs are direct without becoming confrontational, sensual without becoming theatrical, and intimate without surrendering mystery.

Presented in his first solo exhibition in San Francisco, Backwoods Boys: The Monstrous Masculine by Carter Smith introduces an important new body of work by an artist whose photographs continue to redefine the possibilities of contemporary portraiture. Rather than reinforcing familiar myths of the American man, Carter Smith offers something more enduring: portraits of individuals whose complexity cannot be reduced to type, place, or expectation. In doing so, Backwoods Boys reminds us that every generation must create its own image of masculinity—and that photography remains one of its most powerful tools.

September 3 – November 28, 2026