The photographer Tommy Kha addresses themes of dislocation, domesticity, identity, and masquerade with a strain of Lynchian surrealism.
fan culture. Its traditions of reënactment and impersonation are evident in such Kha works as “Constellations ,” a dreamy collage-like self-portrait from 2017. In it, Kha appears unsmiling in a nineteen-fifties kitchen, wearing a white jumpsuit inspired by Presley’s costume for the 1973 concert “Aloha from Hawaii.” The room is turquoise with tomato accents, furnished with vintage appliances and a battered steel filing cabinet.
Kha’s subject matter is more directly autobiographical in the ongoing collaborative series “Má,” which he began a decade ago with his mother, May, who still lives in Memphis. Through the simply staged but lush and nuanced vignettes, Kha elaborates a formidable and complicated connection between mother and son.
In the striking “May ,” from 2015, May appears in a hallway, a small figure in blue reclining on an orange carpet; only her head, nestled on one arm, and her shoulders are visible, emerging from a doorway. She seems to rest on the stripe of light that escapes from the room as she regards the camera with patience, maybe boredom.
One could not accuse the duo of whimsy—that’s not the mood here at all. Yet, while the protagonists of “Má” exist relatively invisibly in the orbit of Graceland, they are not so unlike Elvis tribute artists who flock to it. In these charming, forceful images, self-invention and camp pageantry reign.
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