Narcissus Dreams with Luke is a collaboration between publisher Twin Palms and artist The Skinny Type, created to celebrate the re-edition of Luke Smalley’s second book, Exercise at Home.

Luke Smalley (1955-2009) was an American artist known for his photographic work, which paired a coolly minimalist aesthetic with a retro nostalgia. This collaboration presents eight large hand-cut collages, where The Skinny Type reinterprets Smalley's fascination with the archetype of the athletic American male by drawing the characters closer together in intimate interactions.

The Skinny Type's works primarily focus on hand-cut photographic collages that craft idyllic scenarios of young love and intimacy, delicately floating between idealism and naturalism. These scenes play with various representations of the male figure, explored through the dreams and fantasies of an observer driven by the desire to realise impossible scenarios of narcissistic love or to create intimate moments from characters and situations that share nothing in common other than the desire to force them together.

Luke Smalley’s images were inspired by fitness manuals and yearbooks. This is not surprising since Smalley graduated with a degree in sports medicine from Pepperdine University, USA and worked for a number of years as a model and personal trainer. Smalley shot the bulk of his photographs in his home state of Pennsylvania. He used real high school athletes as models, who engaged in unusual, imaginary competitions he conceived, designing and crafting many of the outfits and equipment himself. His photographs and books are now highly collectible.