To coincide with the annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in February 2025, DRAW Space will present QUEER DRAWING, which contemplates the profound connection between drawing and queerness—presenting drawings by 18 queer and ally-identifying artists, each drawing a window into lived experience of queerness in all its diversity. Queerness is revealed in lines, shadows, and mark-making.
Opening 6-8pm Thursday 6 February during the first week of Mardi Gras and again on Saturday 15 February from 6-8 pm. Join the artists and DRAW Space team to celebrate.
Drawing is an inherently intimate act at the genesis of thought. It requires unique ways of seeing, often revealing what is hidden. Similarly, queerness embodies the idea that the personal is political; it represents a distinctive way of being and seeing, often hidden in history. In this exhibition, queerness serves as an inclusive identity for the LGBTQIA+ community and a fluid term for artistic expression, style, content, and concept.
Drawing is an act of close observation that finds a parallel in queer perception, a finely tuned awareness of subtleties in apparency, dress, and demeanour to recognise queerness in others. Like a sketch being erased and redrawn, so too, queerness exists as a state of constant becoming—forever reimagined, challenged, and lived. By translating a queer gaze through drawing, hidden worlds are revealed.
Curated by queer drawing artist Jeremy Smith, QUEER DRAWING incorporates a variety of approaches, from intricate observational sketches to bold, abstract gestures. Collectively, they explore themes of love, identity, community, and resistance. Through drawing, the participating artists make visible the intersections of their queerness with the broader cultural, social, and political landscapes. Each of the 18 artists invites you into their own unique personal queer world.
QUEER DRAWING features the work of:
Andrew Nicholls
Gareth Ernst
Graham Robertson
Herk Alexander
Jack Buckley
Jake Alexander Cruz
Jeff McCann
Jeremy Smith
Jodi Clark
Keroshin Govender
Kim Leutwyler
Kurt Schranzer
Dr Liz Bradshaw
Luke Thurgate
Michael Simms
Samuel Luke
Tango Conway
Yiorgos Zafiriou
The exhibition runs from 6pm Thursday 6 February to 5pm Sunday 2 March 2025.
HERK ALEXANDER The River In My Eyes
Archival pigment print, Museum grade 100% Cotton rag 310 gsm
107 x 78 cm image with border, 121 x 91 cm framed
GRAHAM GEORGE ROBERTSON (Australia 1930-2010)
Untitled (Two Figure Studies) No. 07 (c 1980s)
Conté crayon on paper, 94 x 64 cm (framed)