Oliver McNeil’s documentary and editorial photography draws on the drama and grandeur of his upbringing: bingeing Project Runway reruns, prancing around in scarves, and a lifelong fascination with the pageantry and aesthetics of the Catholic Church. These early memories taught him that how something looks can carry real meaning, and that spectacle can be a form of devotion.

This presentation of film photographs takes its cue from stained glass windows and the jewel tones of Catholicism. Each image is set inside a crystalline border, so that ordinary memories become something closer to relics, stained glass windows of their own. McNeil’s documentary eye is at its best in candid moments: nights out, afternoons in cultural institutions, and the quiet and loud moments shared with a chosen family that has become his new religion. Where the church windows of his childhood showed saints and miracles, these frames honor the people and places that make up his life now.

Hosted by Suze Riley Studios.