Having his lens focused on the world of Drag since 2012, UK-based portrait photographer Greg Bailey is perhaps one of the foremost visual artists attached to this glamorous corner of the LGBTQ+ community. A gleefully colourful ode to this passion, Lavender Boy is currently on show at Brighton’s Helm Gallery; coinciding with the famous Brighton Pride celebrations.
“Drag has been propelled from being a subsector of the gay community into the spotlight of today’s culture,” the photographer explains. “I’m proud to be part of and to document a scene that’s beautiful and powerful. Its strength doesn’t come from dominance, oppression or conformity, but from love, happiness and inclusivity.”
Never sure if she was using it affectionately or otherwise, Bailey’s grandmother would use the term ‘Lavender Boy’ to describe gay men, but the colour’s symbolism among the community runs deeper than this personal connection. “A streak of lavender ran through him; he had spots soft as May violets,” wrote Carl Sandburg in 1926 of Abraham Lincoln, referencing the US President’s intimate relationship with Joshua Fry Speed, and coining a connection between lavenders and lilacs and effeminate, homosexual men.
It took on a more important role in the 1970s, when the nonverbal system of communicating one’s sexual preferences, the ‘hanky code’, would adopt the colour to express attraction to Drag Queens or that you were one yourself; such was its amalgam of the binary associated colours of baby blue and baby pink. Struggling himself with his own concept of masculinity, Bailey has transformed a feeling of “being too gay” into an acceptance of his own evolving identity as an artist and queer person, using the scene and the experiences of its community as a catalyst and inspiration.
Flamboyance, irreverence and oodles of provocative colour come together in the exhibition, the artist’s debut gallery collection of drag portraiture representing an important retrospective of his personal journey from the 2015 launch of his groundbreaking magazine, Alright Darling?, to the extension of that brand to include a queer centric podcast, interviewing celebrity guests and cutting-edge creatives from the queer community.
A retrospective in all but one new portrait shot especially for the show, his inclusion of a ‘Drag King’ in Lavender Boy represents a progression in his inclusive body of work. “Working with Kings, non-binary performers, the trans community, the lesbian community and more People of Colour is the direction I want to take my work,” he explains, “as these communities haven’t had as much attention as I believe they deserve; they are just as impressive, glamorous, and talented as their Drag Queen counterparts.”
A bold and brilliant body of work that demands attention as much as its uninhibited subjects, Greg Bailey’s Lavender Boy remains on show at Helm Gallery, Brighton until 1 September.
@gregbaileyphoto
@helmgallery_
Lavender Boy Photography © Greg Bailey, courtesy Helm Gallery Brighton.
