Secret Touch

Pocket square, handfolded print on washi paper, 2026 

‘Secret Touch’ is an appropriated 1910 photograph showing two suited young men playing a visual trick on the viewer. It appears each man is holding his own hands, but on closer inspection the photo reveals they secretly hold each others’ hands, touching each other with love.

Their tactile gestures are about offering and surrendering, about trust and care. To celebrate their queer love, I coloured in the men’s shirts and breast pockets with different shades of pink.

The print is handfolded like a pocket square to connect to the ones worn in the men’s suit breast pockets and the tactile nature of the photograph. In the folded version, as below, the square is placed inside a breast pocket. Framed, the work is shown unfolded like a relic of gay love from another time.


Much of my work is about bodies and violence; here I embrace the power of human love and show the body as a site of love and tenderness: two men loving each other, not fighting. It’s just the kind of image I was hoping to find and connect to when I was a teenager in the late 1970s, early 1980s.

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Hand folded digital print on washi paper, painted hardwood frame,  size 45cm x 49cm


Included in the group show ‘Ruin and Repair’, 20 June to 11 July 2026, 232 London Road, St Leonards-On-Sea.