Boys

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.

In this drawing, arabesques of indecipherable lettering merge with a kaleidoscope of colours, vaguely spelling the work’s title, Boys. McDiarmid’s use of visual and textual code can be understood in terms of the queer world he moved, which maintained a subversive capacity for both protective camouflage and ‘out and proud’ visibility.