George Dureau often takes photographs of naked men. He also draws and paints them. Naked dwarfs, naked amputees, naked African-American men. There is no middle ground with Dureau: His subjects are either physically deformed or perfectly constructed. Because the compositions are spare—if not stark—the viewer is forced to confront raw flesh, genitals, stumps. But Dureau’s views are empathetic, not voyeuristic. These nudes evoke the graceful contours of Greek sculpture, which lent immortality to the human form. Sexuality—whether gay or straight—is beside the point. Dureau’s work is explicit, like that of Mapplethorpe (who, it is said, visited Dureau in the 1970s to study his technique), but he emphasizes the humanity of his models.

Dureau was born in 1930 and has lived in New Orleans his whole life. His oeuvre is not entirely relegated to provocative nudes: He also makes epic oil paintings with heroically rendered figures, which hang in the Ogden Museum of Art and elsewhere, and his bronze sculptures grace the gates of the New Orleans Museum of Art. He is represented by the Arthur Roger Gallery.

Last month, we sent photographer Shannon Brinkman to Dureau’s studio. Here are some of the beautifully intimate outtakes from her afternoon.