Leo Adef is an Argentine director and photographer who has lived in Barcelona for several years and depicts the life of the queer community living in Barcelona.
The main themes of his works are identity, sexuality, love, youth and relationships. The artist is looking for inspiration in the undergrounds of Barcelona and tries to create unforgettable photos of the queer community of Barcelona by combining reality and fantasy.
The Buenos Aires-born photographer and visual artist has collaborated with various international publications and recently published his first book, WARP, which combines more than 200 photos from the Barcelona queer society. As the artist says he has been taking photos for 4 years, the book’s characters are the artist’s friends, lovers, muses and artists that he has encountered during these 4 years.
His photos show dreamy moods and fantastic elements, among the character of the book you’ll meet men taking their doses of testosterone in the bathrooms of Barcelona clubs, drag queens scrolling their phones at parties and queer men sunbathing on sandy beaches.
The artist has desired to get to know the world better since his childhood. He was most impressed with his first trip when he left Buenos Aires and experienced a new culture – since then everything has changed and discovering new people, places and emotions has become his main goal.
In addition for the WARP book to being an illustration of the queer community of Barcelona, it is also an attempt by the author to overcome his own struggles. As he said to one of the publication, the people whose photos are collected in the book have played a very important role in his life. For many years, the photographer went to various parties with a camera, met people and offered to take pictures of them, in the process he met many interesting people with whom his knowledge of sexuality, gender and love has increased significantly.
What is most interesting for the artist are not the photos but the stories of the people who are the characters in his book, he is interested in how queer people deal with humiliation, oppression, inequality and how it affects their future lives, how despite this humiliation, they better themselves as people.
For additional information visit the artist’s page or Instagram.
