Ms Sally Gray
College of Fine Arts
University of New South Wales
salgray@ozemail.com.au
Sally is an independent curator, writer and cultural consultant, and is presently undertaking a doctorate on the work and times of Australian born, Sydney and New York active artist, David McDiamid.
David McDiarmid: A Life in Fashion - the Artist as Performative Persona
In 1993, Simon Watney described David McDiamid (1952 - 1995) as "... the most important AIDS artist in the world". As well as being acclaimed as Australia's first overtly political gay artist, McDiarmid was a collaborator with Linda Jackson in the creation of fabric and garment; with Peter Tully in the creation of dance party visual culture; with Jenny Kee in creating painted leather outfits for sale at her Sydney shop," Flamingo Park". The artist, who lived and worked in Melbourne, Sydney and New York, was also the inhabitant of a self-created fashion persona both on and off the dance floor. As part of a 'materialist tracing of the cultural past', this paper will explore dress in the construction of a performative identity as queer artist. Street graffitti; hip hop; cruising; backrooms; dance music; clubbing and death were all sites for the collection of materials, imagery and content, as well as for the performance, of queer identity.
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