Pop along to Helm Gallery in Brighton for portrait photographer Greg Bailey‘s drag portrait exhibition, which explores Pride, colour and inclusivity in the LGBTQ+ community.
Lavender Boy is a carefully curated collection of vividly coloured photographs, which represent a timeline of Bailey’s career as a portrait photographer and his unwavering commitment to the LGBTQ+ community. Through these images, the exhibition celebrates the beauty, creativity, and essence of Drag while shining a light on its often-underrepresented corners and individuals.
The exhibition offers a retrospective exploration of Bailey’s personal journey and the artforms of the queer community; from the launch of his magazine Alright Darling? in 2015 to the creation of a photography book and podcast by the same name. Collaborating with emerging talents, Bailey’s photographic lens magnifies and empowers LGBTQ+ voices while showcasing the boundless creativity of the queer community.
Bailey uses colour to express the explosion of creativity within the LGBTQ+ community, and to acknowledge the colour lavender’s symbolic role within the culture’s development throughout the 20th century. Heavy mauves and decadent purples of previous generations became lighter and more fashionable with women, with lavenders and lilacs taking on a more feminine association. This in turn attracted a queer aesthetic, and became a slang term for effeminate, homosexual men. “A streak of lavender ran through him” – wrote Carl Sandburg in reference to Abraham Lincoln.
In early 1970s America, the hanky code – a system of colour coded handkerchiefs or bandanas – became an integral part of the gay male community for nonverbally communicating one’s sexual preferences and fetishes. The mixing of binary associated colours, baby blue and baby pink create the colour lavender – therefore wearing a lavender hanky represented one’s attraction to Drag Queens or that you were/are Drag yourself.
The term Lavender Boy also has a more personal symbolism for Bailey. His grandmother used to use the term to describe gay men. He never quite knew if she was using it affectionately or otherwise, but for him there was a softness to it, a calm soothing warmth and happiness that felt beautiful, natural – not offensive in the slightest.
“[Drag’s] strength doesn’t come from dominance, oppression or conformity, but from love, happiness and inclusivity.”
While retrospective, the exhibition will feature one brand-new portrait, shot specifically for the show – the Drag King Don One. Don will be the only King in the exhibition. Bailey’s passion for inclusivity and expansion is driven by the aesthetic and the political, he commented: “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, 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.
“Drag has been propelled from being a subsector of the gay community into the spotlight of today’s culture. 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”.
Like many, Bailey struggled with the concept of masculinity, and an underlying sense of “being too gay”. Whilst he identified as a gay man he also felt pulled between “being manly enough to be attractive but fruity enough to set myself apart from straight men, which is all very toxic, and luckily something that isn’t as prevalent in today’s queer youth.”
Discovering Drag opened a creative space in which he immediately felt a “great connection with being able to experience gender expression and gender play”. Referring to himself as “a spectator and documenter” of the scene, it gave him access to others’ stories and experiences, and ultimately set him on the path “to doing what I do as an artist”. His sense of “being too gay” was replaced with a renewed sense of inspiration and by extension an acceptance of his own evolving identity as an artist and queer person.
Helm Gallery, 15 North Rd, Brighton BN1 1YA presents Lavender Boy – A Retrospective by Renowned Drag Photographer Greg Bailey till September 1. More info HERE
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