The dynamic duo wears many masks. We are creatures of context after all. Another half can be found anywhere — storage unit, bank heist, mystery plot, the snowy city — and can be anything — buddy, lover, rival, partner, shadow, best friend. This naked truth of possibility's resilience is a hallmark of artist Kellian Delice's "Digital Styling," a mixed-media practice which borrows the grammar of the fashion editorial but ultimately tends more towards Ryan Trecartin than Steven Meisel.
Crafting a special edition of the series for PAPER, Delice tapped notorious shapeshifters (and friends) Bobbi Salvör Menuez and Diamond Stingily, the resultant study of twoness and transformation ingeniously twisted but also teehee. As always, Delice's worldbuilding is sexy and surprising, like Looksmaxing down the rabbit hole of the Mad Max cinematic universe, designed to seduce but also derail in how its virtual madlibbing collapses any coherent concept of "the real." The intention is to interrupt your scroll, encouraging the simple question, "What is going on?"
Delice's inimitable approach to "Digital Styling" mixes photography, costuming and collage, but it can also be understood as an endurance performance native to the feed. Delice started the project in September 2022, and over the past 123 weeks, he's posted on Instagram over 80 multi-image series, each one with a different core motif — like Christmas, the karaoke bar, autumn leaves, public sculpture, NYC bridges, road kill, reading books and Party City. The vast majority of these are centered around self-portraits, but I feel very honored to be among a select group of muses who have been digitally styled by Delice, along with Sam Max, Michael Bullock and Candice Williams. Surprise, play, and tension are fundamental elements of every installment. Each one typically ends with a middle finger, a gesture that's obvious but also in context a little hard to read.
It’s a great feat to be unpredictable while also building a recognizable language and universe, but this is what Delice manages prolifically. If artists still wrote manifestos, I imagine his would be a pillow embroidered in the Live, Laugh, Love font with the words Outlast, Outwit, Outplay. To be infinitely adaptable, but entirely one’s own in the era of Midjourney and brain rot is a survival skill. A living antithesis to the endless screeds bemoaning how networked socials ruined personal style, Delice is original. No matter how different each context he adopts, something entirely his own pushes through.
When I first became friends with Delice, he was in the midst of another endurance project focused on wardrobe and presentation. For three years, he only wore brown. Last year, the live arts space Pageant commissioned a performance from Delice, and this work which choreographed audience interaction, in ways that centered their surprise and confusion, also featured the artist naked singing the national anthem for 60 minutes. This context is important to understanding the context-jamming of these images as part of a larger artistic practice.
"Digital Styling" might get Delice a job, creative directing for a major fashion house, but I think of it first as a performance in the tradition of Marina Abramović or Vito Acconci.
Kellian Delice: When you’re working together with a clear goal in mind, how do you balance the seriousness of the task with having fun and staying relaxed during the process?
Bobbi Salvör Menuez: I think staying present and connected to who you are working with is key.
Diamond Stingily: This is for real. You want jewels, the diamond and stuff.
Kellian: Twinning is often seen as a way of reflecting or amplifying each other's identities. What does the concept of twinning mean to you, and do you see it playing out in your relationship?
Diamond: Bobbi is my twin, but that’s not my twin. People throw that word around like "iconic." Some things are mundane. Me and Bobbi are not twinning. But we’re friends.
Bobbi: Twinning is about witnessing and reflecting. Being willing to be reflected back, willing to witness yourself.
Kellian: How is it not about the destination and more about the journey?
Diamond: The journey can be very telling. Sometimes the journey can show you if you’re gonna go on a trip with that person again.
Bobbi: The destination is a mental hallucination. All there is is journey, with an occasional change of pace.
Kellian: What haunts you? How do you cope?
Bobbi: Something I’m haunted by is ways in which I’ve betrayed myself in the past. Also, the lack of empathy displayed by people who hold material power in our society.
Diamond: If you’re gonna be haunted, you gotta accept it. It’s part of the journey. Time isn’t real. Accept the ghost.
Kellian: How does love help us to accept the unfamiliar?
Diamond: Friends be out here saving people. The love you get from your community can save you from being scared of the future. There's too much going on to not be present.
Bobbi: Being in a state of love is the opposite of being in a state of fear. I think both love and the unfamiliar share the quality of eliciting vulnerability.
Kellian: What does it mean to turn towards someone?
Diamond: I have some friends I gotta turn towards. Sometimes, I have to get small and let friends hold me in their palms like a little snowball, a delicate little snowball, a little piglet or something. They gotta hold me with kids gloves, and I think that’s fine.
Bobbi: Sometimes turning toward someone with honesty and full self is like turning towards myself. Some shared truth between us. If I'm turning away from myself to turn toward someone else, that’s probably not going to work so well.
Kellian: Tell me about your work-life balance. How do you set your habits in stone?
Bobbi: I start where I’m at, then work my way up. It’s a practice, turning something into a habit.
Diamond: I don’t have a balance, I don’t have a structure. I go in and out of having routines. Everything I do is somehow related to who I am. There’s no separation between work and life. I thought there was. But there never was. I’ve always been this.
Kellian: How does conflict add depth to your relationships?
Diamond: We live in an age where people really want to protect their peace to the point where they’re lonely. You have to figure out how to get through conflict to have friends. Cause if not, you’re going to be a really lonely person, or someone people are scared to tell truth to. That’s why people are so lonely, cutting people off, not talking to people, no mediation. People end up not investing in friendships that can possibly be good for them because they’re trying to protect their peace. Now you're lonely on a Friday night and you’re alone because you just wanted to protect your peace. People be on some unconditional shit — love should come with conditions.
Bobbi: With every rupture there is an invitation and opportunity for repair. There’s not a promise for repair, so it’s about how I or you show up to the conflict.
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