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."

Ross Moore (b. 1954) is a Melbourne-based artist, academic, and writer who came to prominence in the 1990s for discussing issues around the gay body and the HIV/AIDS crisis. He was known for his banner pieces which were included in Ted Gott's *Don't Leave Me This Way* at the National Gallery of Australia. Moore's work employs popular graphics from his childhood to reconfigure current issues. Moore made a series of works dealing with kitsch representations of Aboriginal identity, tracking a difficult terrain, Moore as a non-indigenous artist made parallels between experiences of homophobia and racism. Moore's artworks are unashamedly an act of activist art, his black and white banner *Sodomized* (1995) skillfully conflates issues around HIV/AIDS, gay male sexuality, right-wing politics, pop culture, and health. Moore is now predominately a writer and academic working at the Australian Catholic University.

Ross T. Smith (b. 1961) is a Ngāpuhi/Māori photographer who has lived between both Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. Smith studied fine art photography in Melbourne at the Australian College of Photography Art and Communication between 1987 and 1990. In particular, Smith is known for his photographic series such as *Hokianga* (1997–98), held in the permanent collection of the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, and *Hemi Tuwharerangi Paraha* (1999) in which these two bodies of work position the image of young Māori men and women within the remote New Zealand landscape. In these complex series of portraits, Smith depicts the figure in varying states of strength and fragility, eschewing evocative documentary portraiture to consider the restrictions of identity and representation in a marginalised group. Smith is known within Australia for his large-scale photographic composition *L’amour et la mort sont la même chose* (1990–92), held within the National Gallery of Victoria collection and exhibited within *QUEER: Stories from the NGV Collection* (2022), *TRANSMISSIONS: Archiving HIV/AIDS, Melbourne 1979–2014*, George Paton Gallery, University of Melbourne (2014), and *Don't Leave Me This Way: Art in the Age of AIDS* (1994), National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Smith's work is held in various Australian, New Zealand, and international collections.

Roy de Maistre (1894–1968) was an Australian modernist painter who is most widely recognised in Australian art history for his radical experimentations with “colour-music”. He has been credited as being one of the first settler artists to use pure abstraction. His later figurative work was heavily influenced by Cubism. De Maistre initially studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, later enrolling in classes with Antonio Datillo-Rubbo at the Royal Art Society where he started painting in a style influenced by post-impressionist artists like Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and Paul Cézanne. After briefly serving in the Australian Army during the First World War, de Maistre was inspired by the colour-therapy treatment administered to shell-shocked soldiers. De Maistre emigrated to London in 1930 where he continued to make work along modernist lines. He met Francis Bacon in London in 1930, the two shared a love for French art and culture. Bacon and de Maistre were briefly sexually involved in the 1930s, and occupied studios at Carlyle Studios on King’s Road, Chelsea. De Maistre's portrait of Bacon was made in 1935. It was while de Maistre was in London that he met Australian novelist Patrick White, with whom he also had a brief affair. The two became close friends, with de Maistre serving as an "aesthetic and intellectual mentor" to White[1]. He painted a portrait of White in 1939. De Maistre exhibited at numerous galleries and was given a retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1960. His works are held in major museums and collections in Australia and internationally, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Tate Britain. [1] Elizabeth Webby, "Patrick Victor (Paddy) White (1912–1990)", *Australian Dictionary of Biography,* Vol. 8, 2012.

Ruth Hollick (1883-1977) was a Melbourne based artist and photographer who studied at the National Gallery School and was taught by Frederick McCubbin. In 1908 Hollick began her career as a portrait photographer particularly focusing on group portraits of families, especially mothers with their children. In 1918 Hollick and her partner Dorothy Lzard took over a studio in the Auditorium Building at 167 Collins Street, Melbourne. Later occupying a whole floor of Chartres House at 163 Collins Street. During the 1920s and early 1930s in partnership with Lzard, Hollick became a highly successful society and fashion photographer in Melbourne. As well as her images regularly appearing in the pages of *Table Talk*, the *Bulletin*, *Lone Hand*, *Home*, and the *Australian* magazine. Her work was also regularly exhibited in solo and group exhibitions, including the Chicago Photographic Exhibition and London Photographic Salon of 1927 and the Amateur Photographer Overseas Exhibition in London in 1932. Hollick’s career was significantly effected by both the Great Depression and World War II and although she continued to work out of her home studio in Moonee Ponds she didn’t attain the same success as she did in the 20s and 30s. Much of her work has since vanished as it predominately circulated in the domestic sphere, however, she is still regarded as one of the most prolific Australian female photographers from the period.

Sarah Poulgrain's (b. 1992) practice draws on self-sustainability and artist-led pedagogy to expand what art institutions can do. Though Poulgrain produces sculptures, their practice is primarily concerned with building and sustaining respectful and non-hierarchical relationships. Poulgrain learns a new skill (usually through interest-specific community groups), documenting the process and re-teaching the skill to others. Their practice aims to facilitate a model of knowledge sharing that disrupts power dynamics and prioritises vulnerability and trust. In the series of works, A set of new skills, Poulgrain has taught weaving, welding, chair making, hat making, and aluminium casting, with accompanying exhibition outcomes. Poulgrain is currently in the process of building a pontoon houseboat: a roofed structure on a pontoon base that will serve as both an art space and a space for Poulgrain to live. This iterative project engages boat-builders, lead-light-makers, contemporary artists, ecologists, and people currently living on houseboats. The aim of this project is to create a climate and gentrification resilient ARI for Meanjin experimental art, untying the contingency of art spaces on real estate rental markets.

Scott Redford (b. 1962) is a highly significant and influential gay Australian contemporary artist who has been exhibiting since the early 1980s. Redford's work is rooted in his hometown of the Gold Coast in Queensland and heavily draws from Australian vernacular culture. Redford's work reflects his own position on personal and cultural identity in Australian art. His work has often addressed gay male desire and the politics of HIV/AIDS – himself HIV positive. Redford's photographs of urinals are emblematic of this. These images importantly highlight gay cruising culture at a time when gay desire was predominately contextualised via disease. Redford's work often riffs on the mainstream emphasis on youth and beauty in gay male culture. Redford has exhibited widely and is represented in most state museum collections in Australia. In 2010 Redford had a major summer exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane. In 1992-3 Redford co-curated with Luke Roberts an exhibition entirely of gay male artists called *You are Here* at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, which also toured to the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne. This was the first exhibition of its kind in Australia.