Published: May 2023 | Shoot: September 2018

Living Vivid Exhibition

#lightbydan #gallery #neon

Drag Portrait exhibition at Dalston Superstore 2018

When I first began my colourful portraiture, many of the people I worked with were drag artists and performers; I started a collaborative crusade to learn from, signal-boost and celebrate as many of the local icons I knew from queer nights out as I could. In 2018 I had an opportunity to put on an exhibition at Dalston Superstore

Living_Vivid_Poster
Jayjay
Dolly
Tete
Baby_Lame
Saffron
Thursday
Hurrr
Bougie
Delerium
Don
livingVivid40 image
Crystal
Felix
Mynxie
Nightbus
livingVivid40 image
Jo
Ray
Gonnorheana
Taylor
Petite_Lame
Zia
Cazeleon
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Chase
Shakka
Georgia
Holly
Just_May
Jaqui
Cybil
Rodent
Cola
Shayshay
Crayola
Shakona
Katy
Karnage
Sue_GivesaFuck
Envy

Forty portraits of kings and queens, club kids and performers, displayed for two months in the same scene that most of them came up in. It felt right: the circle complete.

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exhibition_at_dalston_superstore
exhibition_at_dalston_superstore
exhibition_at_dalston_superstore
exhibition_at_dalston_superstore
exhibition_at_dalston_superstore

It was amazing to have so many people see my work, and be such a part of the furniture for a couple months, but in a lot of ways it was a disaster. That poster I made with a friend was never printed, I never sold any of the pieces, and the whole thing cost me about £1500 in a year where I had very little work.

I don’t regret it; it was an exciting thing to do and an apt capstone to an important period of my life, but I’ve not rushed into doing something like that again.

Photo by LightByDan

The poster was made out of a bunch of images where a flash had misfired and cast the queen in a accidentally sinister light. I made it into one of my first prints back in 2018, recreated for the new print shop .