The Chronicles of Follicles by the Dorn Brothers

Enter through the inconspicuous red door next to Young Blood Gallery, and at the end of the long, dim hallway you’ll find something big, dark and hairy. Beneath the rusted pipes and open duct work of the Scott Lowden Photography studio lurks the Dorn brothers’ newest photo project, The Chronicles of Follicles. A collection of large-scale portraits of beards and the men behind them, The Chronicles is a personal side project from brothers Nate and Travis’s regular gig as offbeat wedding photographers. Infused with personal interest and a signature, unmistakable humor, the subjects of this show wear the beards of legends. The Dorns’ cleverly titled and captioned photographs include the trident-wielding, toga-clad “The Ocean God” (which is, upon closer inspection, a picture of Travis) and the wine-sipping, bathtub-sitting “The Entrepreneur”—all featuring some of the most awe inspiring and expressive facial hair I have ever come across.

The Dorn brothers are an amiable, impressive and diverse pair; the charismatic duo was filming an improv skit in one half of the studio while Winston and I stifled our laughter on the other. The brothers’ background in film is the root of their bewhiskered admiration, they happily explained to us. Their experience with the artistic versatility of beards, muttonchops, mustaches, etc., led them to create the series of bushy characters that appeared in their show this past weekend. The brothers, sporting a shapely beard and mustache, sought out men (and at least one woman) whose bristly countenances made them perfect candidates for the Dorns’ unique visual storytelling. Unfortunately, The Chronicles of Follicles photographs won’t make another appearance until October, when they’ll appear at the MINT Gallery. The Dorns are currently working on their next project, a series of portraits of pregnant women. As Nate explained: “Men grow beards, and women grow…babies.”

Photo Credit: Tim Song