Racism, sexism and homophobia preoccupy the work of Lola Flash, a significant photographer in the generation after JEB who identifies as black and gay. She includes a self-portrait among the extraordinary palettes and nuanced expressions in her Epicene selections on view. The portraits examine boundaries and the blurring of them.

Lola Flash, Self-Portrait

"My experience of being black and being gay is that people don't see just that when they see me," said Flash, who explained that she observes a little bit of herself in each of her portrait models. "Above and beyond our ethnicity or our sexuality, we're all good people."

Flash described the purpose of her work as reappropriation: "The idea is to bring to the forefront images of people that you normally don't see and to create a discourse about that."

Since 2003, photographer Sophia Wallace has fostered conversation about an unseen segment of the queer community with Bois and Dykes, a project about female masculinity that explores the spectrum of identities from dyke and butch to tomboy, aggressive and transgender.

"For me, it was really about representing the basic," she said. "I felt acutely a sense of invisibility about my life as a dyke living in New York City with my partner. My focus became butchness because I just didn't see it anywhere."

Sophia Wallace, Sara, Matthew & Sushi, New York City

Recently, her visual love letter to butch women and trans men has taken the form of intimate and truthful portraits displayed in the Pink & Bent exhibition.

"A new direction with my work is artfully constructed portraiture with beautiful lighting," Wallace said. Her latest approach produces work that is uncommonly gorgeous but unquestionably real.

Wallace joined a panel discussion called "Women in the Arts Speak Out," with wood sculptor Nancy Azara and painter Heidi Pollard, moderated by Jennifer Edwards, at the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation on May 29. Planned as an accompaniment to Pink & Bent, the conversation revealed the practical concerns of queer women artists seeking to navigate an inhospitable art world. Participants and guests debated how to set a fair price for work, why more queer artists do not identify as such, and how to find a space to exhibit.

In an illustration of the challenges, one gay man in the audience commented on what he perceived as the lack of sexuality in the exhibition.

"I was really surprised because there really isn't that much sexual expression of women," he said. He compared it to the more overtly anatomical displays common in gay male art.

The panelists quickly enlightened him, making reference to Cora Lambert's sexy image Sapatinho De Cristal, which represents the dyke aesthetic of a woman wearing men's briefs. "I just think there's a huge reservoir that's hidden from view that is our sexuality," cautioned Pollard, "and that because you can't see it, no one thinks it's there."

The panel discussion is to be followed on June 12 by an event called "COME HEAR! Queer Women Reading Poetry," hosted by queer poet and activist Alix Olson and featuring more then a dozen queer women poets, including Staceyann Chin.

Meanwhile, the opening reception for the exhibition on May 20 was the largest ever at the gallery, and it has already achieved notoriety as the lesbian happening of the season. "It was an art mob scene," confirmed Angela Jimenez, whose photographs from a forthcoming book project about the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival are displayed in Pink & Bent.

Apparently, inclusion makes for a compelling exhibition, in addition to a great party.

Pink & Bent can be seen at the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation in New York City until June 28, 2008. For more on Pink & Bent, go here.