Cortez

For nearly a decade, Lawson has been investigating the visual expression of black culture nationally as well as globally. Her photographs speak to the ways in which personal and social histories, family legacies, sexuality, social status, and religious or spiritual ideas may be drawn upon the body. Lawson recently began making frequent visits to Prattville, Alabama, where she met Cortez among a group of men. Posing him suggestively atop the men’s car—which she describes as their symbol of masculinity—she reveals a deep rapport with her subject and an exceptional attention to detail, as she makes meaningful everything from Cortez’s fingernails to the personal objects strewn around the car’s interior.