Database

r e a (b. 1962) is from the Gamilaraay/Wailwan and Biripi peoples of NSW and is an experimental interdisciplinary artist / curator / activist / researcher / cultural educator and creative thinker. Their creative practice-led research extends over three decades, their art often focuses on unveiling the silence of the colonial archive. Their creative research extends into the reclamation and reframing of the bla(c)k queer body, as they re-story Indigeneity and bla(c)kness! Their extensive research includes the examination of contemporary discourses, which as yet have not changed the colonial narrative of Aboriginality. r e a’s work is centred in the visual arts and located in experimental digital technologies that intentionally, disrupt and disturb a history of silence. Their art consciously draws on a legacy of lived experiences, ancestral knowledge and the impact of intergenerational trauma, grief and loss. ‘My art is the practice of reclamation; a disruption of the colonial gaze through re-storying the blak-body as a point of protest.’

Renè Rivas arrived in Australia in the 1980s from El Salvador via the Refugee Family Reunion program. Soon after arriving, Sydney legend Peter Tully took Rivas under his wing in the Mardi Gras workshop. Since then, Rivas has worked as a costume designer in theatre, cabaret and film, creating costumes for major events such as the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade, the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games opening and closing ceremonies, and international films. His acclaimed career has seen him work with the likes of Sydney icons Peter Tully, Doris Fish, Ron Muncaster and Jeanne Little, and received several awards including the SGLMG Lifetime Achievement Award (2016) and the Ron Muncaster Costume Award (2002). In 1986, Rivas founded the Latin American LGBTQA Community and Friends group aimed at promoting multiculturalism, diversity, human rights, inclusion and social equality, and he continues to be an advocate for transgender youth, survivors of discrimination, abuse and religious persecution.

Robert Lake worked at various clubs in the 1980s and 1990s including Stranded, Patchs, Midnight Shift, Jamison St and Soho nightclubs. Robert also worked on nine Mardi Gras and Sleaze Ball parties (1983–88), the Eat RAT party (1988) and various Sodom, Fanny Palace and Homo Eclectus parties in the 1990s. From 2001, he has curated a series of exhibitions on recent gay art history including 'Dead Gay Artists' (2002) at the Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney University, and 'Being Boring: More Dead Gay Artists' (2023) at Darren Knight Gallery, Waterloo.

Rosaleen Norton (1917–1979), who used the name of "Thorn", was an Australian artist and occultist who adhered to a form of pantheistic / Neopagan Witchcraft largely devoted to the Greek god Pan. She lived much of her later life in the bohemian area of Kings Cross, Sydney, leading her to be termed the "Witch of Kings Cross" in some of the tabloids. Her paintings often depicted images of supernatural entities such as pagan gods and demons, sometimes involved in sexual acts. These caused significant controversy in politically conservative Australia during the 1940s and '50s, with Christianity as the dominant faith. The authorities dealt with her work harshly, with the police removing some of her work from exhibitions, confiscating books that contained her images, and attempting to prosecute her for public obscenity on a number of occasions. According to her biographer, Nevill Drury, "Norton's esoteric beliefs, cosmology and visionary art are all closely intertwined – and reflect her unique approach to the magical universe. She was inspired by the 'night' side of magic, emphasising darkness and studying forms of sex magic which she had learned from the writings of English occultist Aleister Crowley."