Interview with courtney coles

courtney coles, back (2025). C-print, 24 x 40 inches; edition 3 of 3. Image courtesy of the artist and Official Welcome, Los Angeles.

This project is made possible with the support from Getty through its Getty Marrow Undergraduate Arts Internship initiative.

People like courtney coles are my favorite kind of people; conversations like the one I had with her are my favorite kinds of conversations. They’re fun, they’re free, they’re liberating, they’re raw, they’re connective; they’re mini feminist revolutions. They’re about sex, the complications that come with it, and the art that represents it—and they’re unequivocally and wholeheartedly unfiltered.

Call it fate, destiny, or kismet that coles’ exhibition still mo(u)rning—a show curated by Ariel Pittman that features intimate photographs depicting a morning of sex—was on view at Official Welcome in the Granada Buildings, just down the hall from Carla’s office. When I stopped by the show and walked in to find coles eating Sour Patch Kids amongst her photographs of naked women having sex, I knew I had landed where I was meant to. coles and I were instantly on the same wavelength, sharing a passion for (and an understanding of) the importance of raw and affronting art. We talked about our relationships and experiences, about sex and desire, about beauty and grace, about shame and surrendering. We talked about hot professors and fucking within the friend group. The vulnerability that happens in these types of candid conversations means allowing the discomfort that comes with them; by accepting that discomfort, we free ourselves from the constraints of what is considered “taboo,” from the shyness associated with the uncouth and the better-kept-private. We all eat, sleep, and procreate—why is it permissible to talk about certain aspects of this basic human behavior, but not all? 

The sexual encounter shown in coles’ photos was unplanned, unlike the scripted formula that is sex in media—whether that be via film, TV, social media, or porn. By contrast, coles’ photographs preserve the rawness of her sexual experiences. Her images are shot in the morning, when one is at their most vulnerable—fresh-faced and badly-breathed. The subjects are in a domestic space—the bedroom—and the photographs foreground this environment. About half of the compositions in september (2024) and monday afternoon with b.r. (2025) are occupied by curtains or walls, the room itself framing coles’ intimacy. This is where they sleep and wake up together, where they live and breathe, where they have intimate moments not captured by the camera. Though they are photographing themselves, and allowing us to engage in their fantasies, these encounters are first and foremost an experience for them. The lens is coles’ own as she engages with her partner—and some photos show her reflection in a mirror holding the camera, wielding the gaze.

The sincerity and softness of the domestic space, their flesh bathed in light, the display of their innermost desires—they are part of this raw, intimate moment, moments captured instead of scenes manufactured. I spoke with coles about this tension between true intimacy and the performance of it, and the urgency of making work that speaks so openly about sex and human connection in its purest form.

courtney coles, september (2024). C-print, 20 x 13.25 inches; edition 1 of 3. Image courtesy of the artist and Official Welcome, Los Angeles.

Talia Tepper: Do you feel like you can be fully authentic in your sexual encounters when you know that you’re being photographed or when you’re photographing somebody?

courtney coles: I genuinely want to say yes… The truth is, photography is a lie. Period. I don’t care what anyone says. 

To the best of my ability, when it comes to being in the moment with someone, I’m being as honest as I possibly can with [the] knowledge of having a camera on me.

TT: I remember you said that in your photograph knife (2025), your partner also had a camera off to the side, right? 

cc: Yeah… [but] at moments we’re both just too into it that cameras are no longer there. It was a performance, but it was also just our natural chemistry… We’re just like following the light, and letting the light guide, and letting the conversation go. I call it all dancing because it really is humans dancing.

TT: Especially with queer sex. Hetero sex so much of the time is just like bam over, okay leave. And this kind of sex is like… oh, it’s been five hours. 

cc: And it’s like, let’s drink water. Where’s my chapstick?

courtney coles, knife (2025). C-print, 24 x 40 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Official Welcome, Los Angeles.

TT: It’s hard because even if there wasn’t a camera, we almost have an internal camera. If you’re not performing for a camera, you’re performing for your partner, or for yourself and your own image of yourself. So you can’t really escape that. Do you feel like having the camera there complicates your sex, or enhances it, or… decreases the authenticity of it?

cc: I think it’s just there. [And then you] come back to the whole, like, this isn’t for the internet, it’s not for other people, it’s for you, so what do you want? That’s my kind of tug and pull with not only art making but the type of sex I’m having… To be an exhibitionist and a voyeur—it’s a performance. I’m equal parts an exhibitionist and a voyeur—like I love to watch and have people watching me, so it’s like, I perform for myself, for you… It’s a whole thing.

TT: [There’s the feeling of] oh god I’m performing and that means my sex isn’t authentic… but maybe you’re arching your back because you want to look good for yourself or for your partner, but then, you think: fuck, porn did this to me, or society did this to me. Art—any kind of art—is a performance. Does that mean that all art is inauthentic? Like, absolutely not, but also absolutely.

cc: We’re both just like, how can we make this the best performance of the year? There are a lot [of] photographers who don’t know how to play with that and it becomes a literal performance… like this is a still from a porn set. [I’m] not saying it’s good or bad, but [I’m] saying that like it’s not the quote-unquote intimacy. [In my photographs] you can totally tell that it’s a glimpse of a moment. 

With the bra photo both on the back of the door [in red (2025)] and on my bed [in bra (2025)], those weren’t set up… I [just] took my bra off and then threw it on my bed. I’m like, oh my god… this looks so good. Let me just photograph this… like, wait. I’m gonna sit here real quick and just gaze on this. 

Honestly, the camera has helped me not hold that shame, because then I have photographic proof of… what happens when you let go like this, [and] what comes from it. You feel good. And now you’re having that visceral reaction from that encounter.

TT: Yeah, look what happens when you let go. So true. Why do you think this type of art that’s provocative, and that might make people blush, is important?

cc:  I think not just what I’m doing, but [also] those who are photographing different levels of erotica—it’s just opening up the discussion of what all that is. It’s open. The discussion of what pleasure is, what desire is, what it means to hold back. What it means to really let go and give in to it all. 

The history of photography is so violent. It’s so fucking violent. The language is violent. It’s all violent. And so I’ve been working through the last few years, changing my vernacular on it. Like I don’t say shooting, I don’t say taking, or I don’t say subject. I’m collaborating with this person. We are working together to make these images. It’s equal parts, yours and mine. We’re making these images… You’re my sitter. You’re sitting with me. I’m not shooting you. I’m making, memorializing, whatever. It’s proof that we are able to find time to really spend uninterrupted time together. And then the conversation shared, the food spent eating, the coffee drank, the blunts smoked—proof of that. And then proof of the softness of our embrace, and the compatibility and chemistry and the fun [we have]. 

[We ask ourselves] these questions of where is [the need to make erotic art] coming from? And your answer is sometimes like, I don’t know. I’m just gonna do it because it feels good. And then you find your answer in the doing over and over. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

courtney coles, bra (2025). C-print, 24 x 40 inches; edition 1 of 3. Image courtesy of the artist and Official Welcome, Los Angeles.

courtney coles, thighs (2025). C-print, 24 x 40 inches; edition 1 of 3. Image courtesy of the artist and Official Welcome, Los Angeles.

Talia Tepper is from Los Angeles and studies International Literature, Visual Studies, and Philosophy at Tufts University. She is a Getty Marrow Publications Intern at Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles (Carla) and currently works on Currents Magazine and Tufts Observer.

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