Jordan Rossi: when portraiture lets the mask fall

1 minute ago

Some faces feel like we know them, as if we’d already met them. We’ve seen them in magazines, in music videos, on social media, on red carpets. They are images built to be recognizable, often repeated until they become part of the very identity of the person wearing them. Photographer Jordan Rossi starts precisely from here, but tries to shift the gaze a few inches further.

Jordan Rossi, when the portrait lets the mask fall
Some faces feel like we know them, as if we'd already met them. We've seen them in magazines, in music videos, on social media, on red carpets. They are images built to be recognizable, often repeated until they become part of the very identity of the person wearing them. Jordan Rossi starts precisely from here, but tries to shift the gaze a few inches further.
Starting September 23, on the occasion of Milano Fashion Week, Galleria Rubin in Milan presents Homecoming, the first solo exhibition in Italy by the British-Italian photographer and filmmaker. The project gathers a series of portraits made over the years and brings together some of the most interesting figures from music, cinema, fashion and contemporary culture.
Among the subjects are Rickey Thompson, Darkwah and Brooke Candy, three very different personalities that Rossi approaches without seeking a single way to represent them. Alongside them appear Nicholas Galitzine, Lashana Lynch, Caleb McLaughlin, Finn Wolfhard, Munroe Bergdorf, Yasmin Finney, Griff, Destin Conrad, Adam DiMarco and Lamar Johnson. A varied group, in which the portrait becomes a different encounter each time.
Jordan Rossi works on the distance between what we know about a person and what an image can still reveal. The subject arrives in front of the lens carrying a story, a career, a public image. Photography can confirm it, but it can also alter it, it is in this in-between space that the author's practice unfolds.
His visual language is immediate, saturated colors, defined compositions, attention to pose and to the construction of the image. But behind this precision lies a more personal interest in the way each person chooses to present themselves. Over the course of his career, Rossi has paid particular attention to queer representation, contemporary masculinity and the shifts in how identity and the body are told through visual culture.
Fashion and editorial work thus also become tools for talking about something beyond the surface. Rossi has built his path between photography, direction and creative direction, working for outlets such as Vogue Italia, Attitude, HUNGER, Gay Times and The Sunday Times Style, while maintaining a practice that is not confined to the editorial image.
In Homecoming this dimension emerges through a series of presences that belong to the collective imagination but that, in front of his camera, can be seen from a different perspective. It is not about erasing what makes a figure recognizable, but about using it as a starting point.
Rossi's photographs remain sophisticated and constructed, but they leave room for something less controllable, a gesture, a look, a posture can completely change the perception of a face we thought we knew.
In this balance between public image and personal presence, Homecoming tells the portrait not as simple representation, but as the possibility of seeing someone in a new way.

Starting September 23, on the occasion of Milano Fashion Week, Galleria Rubin in Milan presents Homecoming, the first solo exhibition in Italy by the British-Italian photographer and filmmaker. The project gathers a series of portraits made over the years and brings together some of the most interesting figures from music, cinema, fashion and contemporary culture.

Among the subjects are Rickey Thompson, Darkwah and Brooke Candy, three very different personalities that Rossi approaches without seeking a single way to represent them. Alongside them appear Nicholas Galitzine, Lashana Lynch, Caleb McLaughlin, Finn Wolfhard, Munroe Bergdorf, Yasmin Finney, Griff, Destin Conrad, Adam DiMarco and Lamar Johnson. A varied group, in which the portrait becomes a different encounter each time.

Jordan Rossi works on the distance between what we know about a person and what an image can still reveal. The subject arrives in front of the lens carrying a story, a career, a public image. Photography can confirm it, but it can also alter it, it is in this in-between space that the author’s practice unfolds.

His visual language is immediate, saturated colors, defined compositions, attention to pose and to the construction of the image. But behind this precision lies a more personal interest in the way each person chooses to present themselves. Over the course of his career, Rossi has paid particular attention to queer representation, contemporary masculinity and the shifts in how identity and the body are told through visual culture.

Fashion and editorial work thus also become tools for talking about something beyond the surface. Rossi has built his path between photography, direction and creative direction, working for outlets such as Vogue Italia, Attitude, HUNGER, Gay Times and The Sunday Times Style, while maintaining a practice that is not confined to the editorial image.

In Homecoming this dimension emerges through a series of presences that belong to the collective imagination but that, in front of his camera, can be seen from a different perspective. It is not about erasing what makes a figure recognizable, but about using it as a starting point.

Rossi’s photographs remain sophisticated and constructed, but they leave room for something less controllable, a gesture, a look, a posture can completely change the perception of a face we thought we knew.

In this balance between public image and personal presence, Homecoming tells the portrait not as simple representation, but as the possibility of seeing someone in a new way.