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What is the story behind John Wood’s photos? Some might think that his pictures, which depict men in various states of the world naked, often wearing black jackets, gloves and boots, were taken in New York during the era of the BDSM artist. Robert Mapplethorpe and Studio 54. Or maybe they were created in a very much different shades of darkness – the type of environment that inspired the homoerotic image of the artist Tom from Finland? If you were given a hundred tests, you would probably not guess that the pornographic, intimate, kinky photos were taken in an attic in the West End of Glasgow, unknown to the world (and the neighbors) for many years.
Wood’s own story is equally strange. At the age of 79, he is presenting his first solo exhibition at Celine Pictures of Glasgow. To say it’s been a long time would be an understatement: Wood has been making pictures since he was young, when he began teaching himself by studying magazine illustrations. The photographs in this exhibition span 20 years, from ‘Cal’, a small Polaroid of a man standing naked next to a white door, taken in 1982, to ‘June 2002’, a gelatin silver photograph of an unnamed man dressed in a leather jacket, while the black military leather and many cigarette butts.
When we talk, Wood is very humble about his pictures. He describes them as “working pictures”, often mentioning that he was happy to follow their lead. He said: “I think they were probably restricted by their very tight leather clothes, so they couldn’t move much. “So what I said about the pictures was very little. It was often the lighting and the shape of the image.” This combination method is why he often prints his work over and over again, saving one set and passing it on to a follower.
Visually, the resemblance to Mapplethorpe is obvious. Both artists portray a masculine image that is closely related to the gay skin, where black clothing is part of the act of drawing madness. While photographing the images, Wood was struck by how “they all look” on leather. “They have great clothes that they don’t get a chance to wear, really, except to go to some leather club on the weekend,” she says. “So I think it gave them a chance to show themselves.” And considering the context in which the pictures were taken – homosexuality was only outlawed in Scotland (for those over 21) in 1981, the same year when the first Aids was diagnosed in the UK – it’s easy to understand how liberating it was to give these men a place to be brave, strong and passionate.
One major difference to Mapplethorpe is that, unlike the American artist, Wood was not part of the leather band that most of his paintings are written on. “It’s funny because I don’t like leather, but it’s not for me,” he says, explaining that he met the Glasgow leather shop with an old friend. Most stories are connected to each other in some way. “He had a homosexual life and lived with people who were in this group of skins,” says Wood. They kept forcing me to take pictures of them, so I thought: ‘What?’
Although many of Wood’s characters are seen naked and dressed in magical costumes, his images are not pornographic or shocking. “There was nothing sexual about taking the actual photos – you know, there was no fun at the end of the session!” he jokes. “There are pictures of naked guys in various positions that might be uncomfortable, but there’s no bondage or anything like that.” There is a deep sense of friendship and playfulness about them. Roberto and Andrew capture two people in an embrace, one teasing the other’s nipples, while Stephen (1996/2026), which was the show’s most striking image, shows a man in a leather jacket and underpants bending down to tie his shoelaces, showing his rear in a sleek and powerful manner.
These paintings that explore masculinity, sexuality and power were a world away from Wood’s everyday life in Glasgow. In the 1970s he worked in the sound department at BBC Scotland before spending the rest of his career as an engineer with British Telecom. Over the years he has worked as a freelance commercial photographer but has never exhibited his work in a gallery, until now.
A contributor to his first show was the Scottish artist and researcher Steven Grainger, who was introduced to Wood as part of his research on gay artists in Glasgow in the 80s and 90s. When Grainger was first called into Wood’s room in January 2026, he didn’t know what to expect. “I thought I was going to look at holiday pictures, like a photo gallery or something,” she recalls. But John took out his archive box and started showing me his pictures.
The two meet regularly to hang out. “We’ve become good friends,” says Wood, explaining how Grainger got him to consider returning to photography for the first time in years. And when it opened at the Celine Gallery – an artist-run space in Glasgow’s West End – Grainger took the opportunity to curate an exhibition of Wood’s works, putting together hundreds of paintings to choose from.
It is important to think about how the pictures were taken. In the 2000s, when Grainger was just coming out, gay men began to take a bigger place in society. But even as acceptance spread, gay characters in TV shows and movies were often ignored. As Wood says: “They didn’t care about you being gay, but they didn’t want to know anything about it. Now, it’s a homoerotic hockey show.” Hot Race he’s stealing the zeitgeist, and Alexander Skarsgård dons leather biker gear in a “sub-dom romcom” PillionMost people’s culture doesn’t worry too much about homosexuality.
For Grainger, who grew up during Section 28His collaboration with Wood has been educational. “If I had known about John when I started art school,” she says, “I think my life would have been very different.” Not only did he find the work of a gay artist who would not be unknown to him, he also learned that, even in the shadow of the Aids crisis, there were gay men in Glasgow living full, exciting and sexual lives. Wood may be modest about his work in creating these images, but he was the one who saw the beauty in them and decided to paint them for reproduction.
