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![Nick Aitken](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 519 750'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
![Grace Towers is an activist, artist, dancer and amazing gender-fluid drag queen.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 519 750'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
![Peaches Christ is a filmmaker, public figure, and drag performer extraordinaire.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 519 750'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
![Treavor Michael is a jewelry designer and hippie.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 519 750'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
![Fred Rose is an actor, singer, and cellist. Nick met him when he was here in S.F. this year performing in Stephen Sondheim\u2019s musical \u201cInto the Woods.\u201d](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 519 750'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
![Andrew Wedge is a fashion designer and was the first portrait Nick shot for this series over three years ago.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 519 750'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
![Dino Rosso is a linguist, teacher, and sea captain.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 519 750'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
![Heather Annaliece Young is a stylist and artist](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 519 750'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
![Michael Bulatao is a video editor at Google and an amazing actor and singer.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 519 750'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
![Nick Ice is a barber and an artist.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 519 750'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
![Kevin Bill is a Project Presentation Designer](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 519 750'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
![Luciano Chessa is a composer and teaches at the American Conservatory of Music in San Francisco.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 519 750'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
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"Paper Dolls: A Deck of Playing Cards" features a collection of over 50 portraits of people from the artist’s life. Read more below.
San Francisco photographer Nick Aitken (pictured above in self-portrait) premieres his newest project, an exhibit titled "Paper Dolls: A Deck of Playing Cards," at The Academy next Thursday. The event is free and open to the public, and features a collection of over 50 portraits of people from the artist's life in over 25 years in San Francisco, including mayoral candidate Mark Leno and notable drag performers Peaches Christ, Suppository Spelling, and Grace Towers.
Inspired by memories of playing with paper dolls as a child, the collection merges past and present as well as masculinity and femininity, using costumes from the 17th to early 20th centuries, with ornamentation and multiple contrasting fabrics to create the feeling of an old portrait from the past injected with vivid color and new life.
"['Paper Dolls'] is about inspiration, the community I'm from in S.F.; it's about perseverance, about telling a story, about my life and experience, and leaving something behind. It's sort of fantasy or dreamlike," says Aitken. "It's about taking someone from the present day, all the people who have influenced me in one way or another, and then marrying this idea that they had a past life and were confident to be who they were authentically at that time."
Aitken did all of the photography, wardrobe, styling, and grooming, plus editing and postproduction.
For more information or to order a deck of cards go to NickAitken.net.
Art exhibition for "Paper Dolls" is September 28 from 7 to 10 p.m. at The Academy, 2166 Market St., San Francisco. See more in the video below.
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Christopher Harrity
Christopher Harrity is the Manager of Online Production for Here Media, parent company to The Advocate and Out. He enjoys assembling online features on artists and photographers, and you can often find him poring over the mouldering archives of the magazines.
Christopher Harrity is the Manager of Online Production for Here Media, parent company to The Advocate and Out. He enjoys assembling online features on artists and photographers, and you can often find him poring over the mouldering archives of the magazines.