Love Train

D’Angelo Lovell Williams’s photographs investigate Black queer subjectivities and complicate stereotypes of Black masculinity by depicting self-love and collective embrace. In Love Train, Williams depicts himself alongside two artists who are also close friends and collaborators—painter Jarvis Boyland and sculptor Cameron Clayborn. The three stand atop a makeshift stage, and their synchronized hand gestures, mimicking a locomotive, allude to the choreography of legendary male R&B trio the O’Jays, whose hit single provides the work’s title. Wearing shimmering black tops and nylon stockings, they stand in contrast with the conventional gendered wardrobe of their historical counterparts.