Mikel Marton is among the newest faces in the field of male nude photography. With a stimulating blend of male eroticism and the simulated gloss of editorial fashion photography he delivers a unique and dreamy style, testing that sensitive line that separates art and pornography: "My critical community sometimes can't decipher what I'm going for, and I fucking love that. That fine line (art vs. porno) excites me, and challenges me to cross censor boundaries while still producing work that is artistically pleasing." Confronting people's traditional boundaries regarding the male body (and all its parts) MikelŐs main goal is to physically express male sexuality without perversion, and to prove the male form as an artistic equal to the female form. Both challenging and sensitive, his vision succeeds to create a body of work that portrays men, entirely exposed and infused with beauty. He says, "Male sexuality has become demonized in many ways, and I aim to prove that even an erect penis can be beautiful, and a sensitive, powerful artistic focus" Mikel's repertoire incorporates gender, desire, mythology and technology as a defiant physical expression of sexuality, as well as the metaphysical. Through his creations, he casts a dream-world of unearthly male beauty: " I make gods, not humans. It all comes from my fetish for mythology. I want to transcend physical with the physical. There is no longer just external, but emotion and physicality become one." Though his work focuses on photographs of beautiful young men, his few images of sexually-empowered she-warriors come from his life long obsession with powerful women, complimenting and contradicting his childhood idolization of female comic book characters. His photographs of young males extends to his self portraits as well: "My self portraits are explorative, transforming the captor into the captive. Exposing myself as I would expose other models is to give up the dominant power that many photographers thrive on. In front of the camera rather then behind the camera I take on a whole new submissive power. This idea of power exchange is quite sexual in itself, and brings a new context to the relationship between model and photographer." 24-year-old, Canadian-born Mikel regards the sexual and artistic oppression he experienced while growing up as a gay artist in a very Christian town as inspiration to express himself in a controversial way. "For me, now to be able to create work that influences others to break free from those sorts of oppression is very powerful. " Fresh from high school he moved to Vancouver and started to develop his talent and his name internationally, as a photographer. Now residing in Montreal, Mikel is working on numerous projects, creating new works for publication, and is currently represented by the Envoy Gallery in NYC. Mikel. Montreal, Quebec. mikel@toxicboy.net 514.297.6250