COUTUREBOY is rooted in my personal history and inspired by the influential masculinity of my uncles, Cecil and Ivory Sharp. Their charismatic yet complex personas sparked my early fascination with narratives of masculinity and with how advertising shapes and glamorizes male identity. My uncles were hyper-masculine with a soft undertone. This fascination was further enriched by my journey to Paris, France, Rio de Janeiro, and Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. In Paris, I experience refinement, restrained or quiet elegance, and chicness in the male aesthetics. And in Brazil, I experienced a kind, effortless, humanistic, masculine beauty. A beauty carried with ease of embodiment. A sensual physicality that felt unforced and affirmed as being. These unique experiences became the foundational DNA of COUTUREBOY—a multidisciplinary practice that explores the visuality of form as a coded frequency activated, in art, identity politics, photography, commerce, and advertising theory.

Guided by the mystique, physicality, and social prowess that marked my uncles' lives, I wondered who they might have become without the interruptions of cultural and identity politics. This curiosity drove COUTUREBOY's evolution from an ideated digital concept into an inquiry-driven project that intersects identity, desire, art, and commerce. The project's vision was recognized with a Meta small business grant in 2020, and its impact was further validated when it was showcased at the prestigious Noorderlicht International Photo Festival in 2021, challenging the reliability of visual media in depicting reality.

Today, COUTUREBOY operates as a commercial entity exploring the visual language of feminist-informed masculinity at the intersection of identity, advertising, desire, and commerce. By incorporating architectural theory, the project redefines the photographic frame as a container—a deliberate space to explore the male form in its full sensuous physical and aesthetic beauty. It blurs the lines between these seemingly disparate worlds by including interiority through a lens of love, emphasizing emotional depth, connection, and humanity alongside visual allure.

The project celebrates masculinity not as a rigid, traditional construct but as a fluid, inclusive, and deeply human experience. Through its blending of art, commerce, and identity, COUTUREBOY challenges conventions, offering a reimagined perspective on the male form as a site of sensuousness, vulnerability, and aesthetic refinement. This work positions masculinity within a broader, more compassionate framework that harmonizes beauty, desire, and introspection to invite a richer engagement with its audience.