Orange Grove captures with precision the wonder of companionship and the beauty of developing selfhood.

Clifford Prince King moved to Orange Grove in 2016 with friend and collaborator Malcolm Marquez. They shared a warm two-bedroom in the Burbank hills, tucked into a leafy courtyard within walking distance of the Sprouts, where King worked the early shift. 

The photographs from this time detail the spectrum of exploration, bliss, and transformation that comes with burgeoning queerness in a new creative, social, and physical landscape that shaped the ethos of these two artists’ creative practices. 

Orange Grove is an orbital chart filled with many lives and connections. King is not the center, but he touches all as he traverses new realities of desire and intimacy. Woven into the narrative is King’s 2018 HIV diagnosis, and the subsequent shifts in the body that illness brings. Sheets dampened from night sweats transpose to pills on two tongues and an arm around the shoulder.

You’re invited in. You’re taken care of. There are books you’ve never read, knick knacks on the shelf, a meal placed before you. Lay down on the floor and gaze around or you’ll miss what’s present. King holds his own dearly with intrigue and grace. Orange Grove captures with precision the wonder of companionship and the beauty of developing selfhood. 

• 24 cm x 28 cm
  92 pages, 45 colour images
  Foil-stamped hard cover with colour tip-in image
  ISBN 9781943146321
  TIS Books, 2022