David McDiarmid & Peter Tully 1984 at Roslyn Oxley9

The work of David McDiarmid traverses the complex and overlapping histories of art, fashion, craft, gay liberation, music, sex, and identity politics. McDiarmid was an interdisciplinary artist who played a pivotal role in shaping Australian visual culture in the 1980s and 1990s. He was a dedicated gay liberation activist, and his personal politics were intertwined with his art. His work explored and celebrated his own sexual identity while scrutinising the stigmatisation of homosexuality.

This screenprint is an example of the DIY poster movement that emerged in Sydney during the 1970s. It shows McDiarmid’s distinctive typographic inventiveness that was inspired by the abundant street graffiti he saw while living in New York. The floral wallpaper is typical of his embrace of the feminine and ‘low art’, along with his tendency to repurpose found materials. McDiarmid’s transgressive mode of collapsing opposites is in clear view in this poster, where the aesthetics of graffiti and the domestic interior merge. Artist Peter Tully was a close friend and creative collaborator who alongside McDiarmid played a pivotal role in shaping Sydney's gay visual culture in the 1980s.