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Hi everyone, welcome to another virtual highlights
tour at the National Portrait Gallery. I am

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so excited about today's conversation. I am going
to introduce you to two of the loveliest

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humans you could hope to meet and two fabulous artists.
But before we get underway, I'd like

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to acknowledge the traditional custodians of
the land that I'm broadcasting from today.

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We are on the unceded lands of the Ngambri and the
Ngunnawal peoples here in Canberra, Australia.

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And I'd like to acknowledge any First Nations people
who are joining us for the program today

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and acknowledge that this always was and always will
be Aboriginal land. So let me without any

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more delays introduce you to Will and Garrett Huxley.
Thank you so much for joining us today,

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guys. Thank you. Thank you for having us. You look
absolutely gorgeous as always. Thank you. Just a

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little bit of midday sparkle. Everybody lives a bit
better than their lives. Guys, would you like

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to maybe introduce yourselves to the people today
and tell us a little bit about yourself? Yeah,

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we'll just start by acknowledging the traditional
owners of the Wurundjeri land of the Kulin

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Nation where we are today and pay respects to the
eldest past, present and emerging. And we

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acknowledge this always was and always will be Aboriginal
land. So we are Huxleys. Thank you.

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I'm Garrett. I'm Will. And we kind of like we sort
of refer to ourselves as gay terrorists or like

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but we're kind of multidisciplinary artists who kind
of like to saturate all the mediums with a

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surreal kind of queer joy that we hope brings some
sort of magic or escapism because life can be

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quite dark and quite challenging. And this fantasy
world that we created was a way for us to feel

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comfortable as being very different from where we
came from, but also bringing that joy and that

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that weirdness to people to hope to give them like the
fantasy. Yeah. We use costume and photography

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and video work and we make everything ourselves
together. And yeah, we just have been on this

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crazy journey and we never thought that we would end
up being where we are and what we're doing.

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But we're really hard to get here. I'm not sure if
everybody's familiar with your work, but they

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may also not be familiar with your faces because
quite often when you're performing, we don't

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actually get to see your beautiful faces. We get to
see your beautiful costumes and your beautiful

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masks and your amazing makeup. So maybe you can tell
us a little bit about how you first met and

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how this kind of journey of discovering this amazing
art form came to be. Well, we've been

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together now like almost 18 years. Congratulations.
And we were both working as independent artists.

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We both studied photography and I studied filmmaking
and photography and we both sort of

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working away at independent practices and we met and
fell in love. Garrett worked in a video store

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and I would try and look at like art house films and
try and make an impression. But Garrett was

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actually my first relationship with a man. So it
was really special. It was just like a really

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healing and kind of special thing for me to meet
someone that I admired and loved art. And our

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first kind of meetings we talked about Leigh Bowery
and Kate Bush and Grace Jones and John Waters

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and all these like things that I've been searching
for someone that loved the same things. And I

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think it was just a really special. Yeah. And I studied
up in Queensland at the Queensland College

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of Art. I was doing photography and then I came down
to Melbourne and met Will and we were together

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probably like eight years before we collaborated
together. Someone asked us to do a project at

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the Bakehouse Studios to make a mural. And so we made
that and something happened when we worked

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together. It just kind of like was bigger and more
colourful. And so the whole thing of us

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starting and being called the Huxleys is quite
accidental. It just kind of happened. I know

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that sounds weird but people just you know saying oh
we've seen that mural there. Can you bring that

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to life? Can you do a stage show of this? And we're
like okay sure. And then people were like

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oh the Huxleys are here and we were like who are they?
So the whole thing is just us kind of creating

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and making more work and going along for this like
ride really. Yeah. Garrett took on my surname.

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We're not married because we don't necessarily
believe in the concept of marriage but we

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have a light. I guess you know it was a sign when the
plebiscite was happening. We were so kind of

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upset by that and we showed solidarity for our
love. Garrett just took on my surname and

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then people started calling us the Huxleys and we just
went with it. But a journey that we've been on

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has been a lot about saying yes. And just like challenging
ourselves and laughing and just having

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a sense of humour saying we may not be the best at
that but let's try and do that. And there are

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things that like performance wise we're not trained.
I always wanted to be a performer when I was a

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little kid and I went to I did do some performing.
I went to WAPA in WA briefly. But the performing

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and the costume making and stuff is just all stuff
that we have just taught ourselves or challenged

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ourselves to do. And when we started working together
I think it brought a lot of um there was

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like no one to say no. It was like I always had this
thing that you just in the in life if someone

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believes in you. It doesn't matter who that person
is. They give you the permission to say yes

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you can do this. You know to have that trust and that
sometimes it comes from like a university or

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it can come from a friend or a lover. And where they
just say I believe in you and you can do this

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and you can do anything that you really want to do.
And not being afraid of failure is a really

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like because there are a lot of failures we've had.
And I think that's really valuable. And when we

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do fail we laugh. And I think humour is so vital.
Growing up being I grew up in WA and

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it was a very homophobic kind of environment. I
had a really tough time at school. And it was

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like only through humour and trying to make people
laugh that was kind of a way to survive.

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And I think we put a lot of humour and joy into our
work. And I think the like you mentioned the

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masks and hiding our faces. A lot of that was to
do with having confidence to do what we do,

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to get out on stage and perform. Being Will and Garrett
as we are now is quite confronting. That's

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why we're wearing a little bit of sequin. But we don't
often do that because there's a freedom that

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comes with being anonymous and wearing masks. You can
be we always say it takes away gender and it

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takes away class. It takes away race. You can be an
object and an artwork. And it's very freeing.

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And it gives us confidence. And that's the same
with the makeup as well. It's almost like an

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armour or a shield. And you feel more like
a more realised version of yourself.

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Yeah, I find it more interesting when you don't have
a face or you know, so when you're just walking

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around or people interact with you, you just see their
minds. You know, most people want to know

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what you are or what gender you are, which is interesting.
But some people just go with it

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and they're quite happy that you're this object moving
about. They're often trying it when we're

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performing in public spaces. It's often I sort of
straight men that are really confronted and

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"oh, you a chick or a dude?" And it just creates the
purpose. Like the idea of our work is freedom.

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When you take away those binaries. It's this beautiful
place you can play in where you don't

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have to be put in a box. And growing up I was always
more feminine and always attracted to

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my friends were all women. And femininity has always
been a sense of power and strength for me.

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And always in my life, people have tried to say, take
that away and say "oh, call me a girl" or say

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like as if it's a negative thing. And I think for
me, it's always been a joyful, powerful thing.

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And women have always inspired us. So we do play with
gender in that way. But we kind of like to

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take it away completely. So there is
this sense of you can be anything.

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Yeah, that's an interesting point actually though,
Garrett, that you made about removing the face.

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And obviously we're at the National Portrait Gallery
here. So there may be some people of

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the audience going "oh, we don't have any faces
in these images" but these personas and these

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costumes and everything that you're creating is so
personal, so deeply personal to both of you.

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Could we argue maybe that a lot of this work is
the self-portrait of the two of you together?

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I think it is. And there's this mirrored thing that
we use in our work. I've kind of felt like I

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found a soulmate and Garrett, like a mirror to have
this beautiful mirror to have that makes

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you feel okay and makes you feel special. And the
work is always personal for us because it's

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this exploration of when you haven't been able to express
yourself growing up, it's so you feel so

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constricted. And the work that we do is like this,
it's almost like an exorcism of all the times

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where I wasn't allowed to be queer. Yeah, it builds
up like a volcano, you're like "watch out".

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When I was a kid, I was even when you wore
a pink t-shirt or shorts above the knee.

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And I just, I was so, you kind of hide yourself. And
as particularly as boys, I wasn't into sport

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or anything like that. And it's so hard to hide those
things and it takes a real toll. And so this

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work, there's that great thing that Freud said, which
was the idea of the return of the repressed.

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And it comes back in a monstrous form. And I feel like
that's kind of what our artwork is. It's this

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monstrous explosion of being different and how that
feels in a culture that doesn't necessarily

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always support difference. We're in a culture that
is very much about, has often been about sport

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and athleticism and art has never been celebrated
enough as it should be in Australia. And also,

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you know, Garrett was in the Gold Coast, or Queensland,
and I was in WA. And the 80s and 90s

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were very, the culture was quite backwards then, if
you were different. Things have changed a lot

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now, which is good. But I think our work is about
celebrating that love that was kind of,

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we didn't see around us when we were growing up. You
had to look to magazines and other artists.

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And we've always said that art saved us. So when
you didn't have friends or you didn't feel you

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fit in, you could find it in a song or a magazine or
a countdown. Seeing like David Bowie as a kid or

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Prince or, you know, the pictures of Cindy Sherman,
where she was just creating all these

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amazing characters. I once saw a picture of Cindy
Sherman's weekroom and I was like, that is so

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cool. And just the idea that you don't have to accept
what, you know, the limitations of who

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you are or what you're given, you can actually dream
outside of that if you don't feel, yeah,

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and people like Bowie or Boy George, even someone
like Grace Jones playing with that,

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those incredible characters and power was really
formative and character-scovered Lee Bowie.

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And that was the reason, one of the reasons
you went to London when you were a...

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Yeah, I left the Gold Coast, went straight to London
about 1990 and had a great time there for

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a couple of years. Saw a lot of my heroes I was
seeing in like the Face and ID magazine.

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And Saw Lee Bowie and Martha Clark performed and
went to those clubs. But I think what's

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interesting now about Australia is we, because we travel
a lot around Australia and we go to places

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like Canberra and Brisbane and Perth and there's young
kids there that we perform with all coming

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to contact with and they don't feel like they have
to move anymore. So that's a really lovely...

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Yeah, that's incredible, isn't it? Yeah, it feels
really beautiful that they don't feel like they

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have to leave in order to get what they
want or to feel validated, I guess.

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It just spent a month in Brisbane and it was just
a really warm response to what we were doing.

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I lived in Brisbane briefly because I studied
up there and it was not warm.

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I guess it was hot, but it was definitely not a
good place to be if you're not different. But

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it's been really beautiful going back and seeing
how open and how times change so quickly.

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One thing in our art that we love to do is we're
both heavily inspired by surrealism and

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Dada and that kind of idea that there is no right
or wrong or... Like a lot of those incredible

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surrealists like people like Max D'Anne, Saw Lee
and I were carrying them, they were creating

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artworks that were just dreamscapes or you didn't
have to say is what is that thing,

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what is that object. It's such a sense of joy
when you don't have to name something.

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And there was the idea that there is no end or beginning
or no right or wrong to something you

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could be. Some of my favourite moments when we're
performing or we've been at the art gallery

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is actually walking home or walking to the car in
these costumes because it becomes more surreal,

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you're on the street and you're part of everyday life
and that's when really strange things happen

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and that's kind of my favourite bit. People
are always saying what are you?

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Just let go. It's about it saying confused.
It's actually really nice to not have to

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know what something is or sometimes watching a film
like a David Lynch film or something where

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you don't necessarily know what's happening. It's
so your mind kind of opens and you go to places

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that you wouldn't normally go because you use your
imagination. We touched a little bit on

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that revisiting of places that perhaps weren't so
friendly for you when you were growing up.

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There's a really lovely sequence of images that
you've done of sort of taking back or

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reclaiming some of those amazing old postcards
and we've acquired a couple of them into our

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collection. I'm wondering if you might be able to tell
us a little bit about how this works in your

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work? Yeah, so as we talked about the places that we
came from, this project was this kind of beautiful

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way of finding peace with struggling fitting in so
being like a total fish out of water I guess

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in a sense and you know over emphasizing the difference
of how you might feel in those environments.

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Kind of like the idea growing up I loved to film
Edward Scissorhands and I always loved how

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the Edward Scissorhands character was at complete
odds with that pastoral suburbia

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and growing up in the suburbs of Perth and the Gold
Coast you felt like even if it wasn't just

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visual insight you felt like you're a total alien and
so this series we went actually went back to

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the Gold Coast and Perth and searched for vintage postcards
which was actually a really fun process

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and then found a way we photographed ourselves make
costumes and wigs and make up and photographed

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ourselves and then put ourselves into these places
as a real like signifier of how you felt really.

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Yeah it's interesting thinking back to those times
because they were quite the hard times

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growing up as a kid back then you were just bullied
constantly but there's an interesting

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part of you that can't stop expressing yourself when
you're that age as well so it's like you're

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drawing more attention to yourself and you're saying
I don't belong here you know like I'm not

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part of this you know and so you're creating this
kind of attention almost to yourself which is

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really interesting like we used to have Goths in school
and I don't think anyone in Australia does

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Goths like quite like Brook Queensland for some
reason because it's so hot. We used to have

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everything called beach games and all the Goths would
just pick beach games and just walk along

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the beach with umbrellas. I love that so much. Yeah
it's very theatrical and it's like this big

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sign saying like I'm not you know screw you I'm not
part of it so yeah I had this experience at

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school where I I tried to fit in for a while like I
thought I have to buy all the selfie clothes and

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I have to look like so I had these like but my my
mum was like oh yeah go buy some selfie clothes

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and I chose this like purple billaubon tracksuit
with applique dolphins and it's still wrong

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but I tried to fit in and it actually didn't help
me at all so in the end I was like like

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fuck you I'm not fitting in I'm gonna go the complete
opposite and I wore my clothes I wore

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like 70s clothes and I wore my mum's old flares and
I just like I thought if I'm not gonna fit in

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I'm gonna be as spectacularly different as possible
and I've got teased every day school

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when I've ever enjoyed school like I mean I I just
I like sort of retreated into myself and

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my loved art and music and stuff but I you just you
can't hide it it's not a good idea to hide

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who you are because if you do it's still not gonna
you're still not gonna make it you're not gonna

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be happy and and um these images are like going
back to Perth and Queensland and and finding

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humour and joy and being different and and the ones
that you acquired by the National Portrait

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Gallery the small town boy they're cool and they join
at the heart because from either side of this

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country we found each other you know and growing up
I would have been so um they would have been so

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special to meet someone like Garrett because I felt
so lonely and and this image it shows the

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joining of how that feels to find a kindred spirit and
even though we were miles away from each other

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in these postcards we're connected because we are
different and and the image and we're holding

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the Bronsky Peak small town boy vinyl that song is
all about about a boy in a small town that has

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to leave because his family rejects them in his community
and it's a really powerful like it's

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one of the most powerful queer songs I can think
of and we both love that and the video is an

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incredible video if you haven't seen it it's um it's
Jimmy Somerville leaving and singing this

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song it's really sad I love disco songs actually
quite sad it's there's this beautiful contrast

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between the disco beat and the sadness behind it and
but we're both carrying that album that means

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a lot to us that's a nice segue actually into the
influence of music on your life and your

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work that comes through so strongly even just in a
few of the names that you mentioned Kate Bush,

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David Bowie but there's Prince but there's a whole
bunch a whole genre of artists that you

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really resonate with and a lot of your performances
music is really integral to that can you have

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a little chat about the influence of music on your
work? I think when we were kids the thing

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that we were had access to was something like countdown
or rage and I used to stay up at night

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and watch rage and that was the first time I saw David
Bowie and Molly Meldrum was so influential

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in introducing camp to Australia yes he's got a
lot to ask for we need to thank him for a lot

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as well yeah but that's where Garrett saw Boy George
but actually went to see Boy George yeah

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saw Boy George when he came out so I think those people
they kind of shone you know they were shining

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in this land and even though you're like nine or ten
you just know you know you know what you like

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and what you feel like as well so I think that's why
they became so important to us these heroes

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like Nina Hargan, Boy George, Pete Burns, you know
David Bowie and Grace Jones they just you know

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they really stood out to us and they became important
figures so like seeing David Bowie maybe

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feel not so alone because I've had there's something
to dream of like somewhere out of where I was

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and that those heroes are so important and seeing that
like someone like Lee Bowie who was actually

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from Victoria and we you know grew up in Australia
and then left and created this incredible world

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where those people are like these we call them like
shining beacons like luminaries that we are like

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there is an alternative to to what we see around
us yeah because we're you know there's nothing

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around you especially when we were younger and you
know people that were younger before that that

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really you know you can't really see anything like
you or anything around you so these are the you

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know you catch it in movies and the little glimpses
but you when you were young you had your work

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really cut out for you to kind of find those people
I remember seeing Iggy Pop on TV when I was

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sitting and he was like shirtless and leather pants
screaming and blood on him like it was just

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such anarchy and chaos and joy and I was like that
person it's just like I want to be like that

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and and I remember one of I saw the documentary in Bed
with Madonna when I was like I must have been

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remember that I was obsessed with that too for me
it was one of the first times that I saw queer

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people interacting and and laughing and being joyful
and being sexy in her in the behind the

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scenes I was I was obsessed with those dancers and
and also just her being this spectacle of

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of sex and excitement and at that time a lot of
her work was kind of quite queer and I just

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stuff like that makes a huge impact on you know it
makes you feel like um you're yeah that there

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are communities out there for you and it took us
a while to find those but they're so important

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and and art all that artwork you know the pictures
of Robert Maplefield I saw in the art gallery of

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WA that just blew my mind and I was like what is this
dark sexy world where is it I mean to find

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and it just keeps you dreaming because if you don't
have hope you can get really stifled in

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small places where you where you're not accepted
so all that music can really fit into and when

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we make costumes or make photos we're always playing
music so each one sound track or like a

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costume we're like oh that's rocksy music that costume
because that's what we want to listen to

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when we made it um we have a emu
who only listened to Susie Sue

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yeah it's just so important and
and yeah she's a goth emu

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um that probably leads into the other work that
we've acquired here at the portugese which is

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uh video clip a style over substance can you describe
this work for us yeah so style over

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substance was the story of uh it's actually taken but
that that idea was taken from a quote by Oscar

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Wilde who said in matters of grave importance style
not sincerity is the vital thing and I

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always thought that was really funny and our work is
so over the top and you know I love the idea that

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it's like a bit of a joke that it's style over
substance because it means so much to us um

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but it is very like I think a lot of people it took
it took us a long time to be taken seriously and

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and not that we want to be taken seriously but our
art to be taken seriously because people think

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oh you're just having a good time uh but there's so
much work and thought that goes into it but it

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does look like it's you know like extravagant fun
uh but the the song style of a substance is us

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telling the story of growing up as these queer
different kids looking for looking for this

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magical world and and the song is about finding
that and we filmed on a lot of locations for

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this video that it coincides with a photographic
series called places of worship which was us

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in our costumes finding the beauty and joy in the
natural world which is often so extravagant

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the colors and flowers and animals and creatures
so have such a set greater sense of freedom

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than we do as boys growing up like and we wanted to
to show how precious and inspiring the natural

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world is because a lot of the colors and costumes that
we make are inspired by that and that features

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in the video as well you know what was interesting
with the video in the photographs when we went

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out into nature with these costumes um we actually
felt more um a place in nature than we do around

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the city so it's something happened it's just like
they kind of yeah they just fed into their

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landscape quite well and nature is not judgmental
and in the natural world uh the brightest

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hottest pink flower is it's danger and beauty but as
a as a boy you're like oh we can't be too much

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but nature is too much and it's it's inspiring and
sea creatures that we have made costumes are

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agenda fluid and and there's just this sense that the
natural world doesn't not you can never make

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anything that's probably as beautiful and as interesting
as the natural world and and we

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love animals and we take inspiration from them and
yeah so it was the video and the song was really

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a really stepping point for us as well because
one of our first acts we did was a dark mofo

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where we did this glam rock band that had no sound
and it was a stage rock show with backup dancers

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pyrotechnics videos dancing we had instruments people
playing them but they were silent and it

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was completely silent it was it was kind of inspired
by the john cage four minutes 33 that

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performance of silence um but it was like every
single other element other than sound was so

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extreme and and people loved it but they were kind
of confused but they went with it um and then

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years later we this was our first song where we actually
singing and making music and we worked

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with um two melbourne musicians to make it and it
was kind of a real challenge and you know we

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always wanted to love pop stars and and glam rock and
this was our kind of chance to be them i absolutely

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love that line that nature is not judgmental i think
one of the most um hilarious and brilliant

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moments i have seen on mainstream live to air television
is when i don't even remember where

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it was but somebody maybe they were doing the weather
and they crossed to um an exhibition

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where you had the sea urchin costumes on and they're
asking who you were it was the most beautiful

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piece of theater that i possibly could have imagined
it was so great so strange because

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that it was like channel seven or something they'd
done yeah they they didn't care who we were they

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were just there it was at five a.m. and they were
like we were dressed in our sea urchin costumes

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and i was so tired and i was like oh are they's going
to interview me and they said lots of energy

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come on give it the best and i was just being honest
and they said what are what are you and i said

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oh with sea urchins but also you know we look it's like
we call ourselves the fluffy anus um because

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of sea urchins anus is actually where its mouth should
be because the way they eat off the sea

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floor it has like that yeah and i was explaining
this and they just explained it just like that

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there was this huge outcry and there was like it
was in the paper and i was saying that it was

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disgusting on sunrise tv using the word anus which
is actually a scientific term like David

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Expred has used the word anus um and then
um the rising had to apologize to like

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it was just like so ridiculous but it was it was the
natural world inspired us we were sea urchins

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and and but they but the presenters of sunrise were
outraged by the term oh it was glorious it was

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absolutely glorious sometimes it's good to shock those
people and i didn't think it was shocking

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because a lot of times we think it's quite
normal the way we present ourselves and

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one of the one of our favorite performances is
this we have we created a giant four meter

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vulva um we're born wrong and it it happened when
donald trump was being elected and we were so

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angry about his statements towards women and just the
general misogyny that the world so we're like

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let's create this this amazing celebration of where
we had come from which is we've all been born

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from a vagina we're all like born from this beautiful
feminine power and we're like let's

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create this big sculpture that we worship and we're born
through it and we perform to born to be alive

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and it's like a worshiping like it's our it's our
deity um and any time we take it somewhere to

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perform people are really outraged and angry we performed
at the sydney contemporary and a few

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years ago and that this sort of the vitriol about i
just i always say where how do you think you've

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got here like this is just something that is beautiful
that needs to be celebrated in a joyful

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way and now we go back in at the end yeah performance
used to be we go back inside

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the vagina we're like this i can tell
you i have days like that a lot

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um can we talk a little bit about your most recent
project i believe it's your most recent

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00:30:45.960 --> 00:30:53.960
project it's the bloodlines series yeah so this
was um probably my favorite series we've made

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because it means them so much to us it um bloodlines
is a tribute to all of the heroes and

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artists that we lost to h.i.b and aids a whole generation
of incredible artists was we lost and

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as growing up in that time being queer it was
so scary but also so but such a huge

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loss of all those voices and for years we've always garrick
and i talked about that that that sense of

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that we owed so much to those people and and we wouldn't
be here doing what we were doing without

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those voices um we were had talked about a long time
finding a way to do it we wanted to do it for

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00:31:36.040 --> 00:31:41.240
a long time but we just didn't know how to do it right
and then just finally clicked in our heads

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how to do it um you know with paying respect to
these artists but also being showing how they

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influenced us so we just didn't want to copy them or
we wanted to you know have our own voice in there

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00:31:53.480 --> 00:31:58.440
and we found them the concept was kind of based around
the idea of saints like holy cards like

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00:31:58.440 --> 00:32:04.600
these artists so you know people like Robert Mapplethorpe,
Peter Tully, David McDermott, Cookie

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00:32:04.600 --> 00:32:14.440
Mueller that there's so many Sylvester, Freddie
Mercury, it was just this enormous sense of

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debt to these people that should still be here and
their influence is everywhere and with queer

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young queer people and a lot of them we were talking
to a lot of community didn't they were

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like who's Sylvester, who is Hibiscus and Sylvester
obviously Mighty Reel is like was a gender

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00:32:35.720 --> 00:32:41.160
non-conforming incredible disco star and was so brave
all these artists were so brave because at

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00:32:41.160 --> 00:32:50.360
the time that they were working it was still really
difficult to be queer and it only been in the

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00:32:50.360 --> 00:32:54.920
70s where the gay rights movement happened and
there was this beautiful brief period

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after gay liberation and before AIDS where all these
artists were really free and fighting and

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00:33:01.240 --> 00:33:06.120
being loud and having their voices heard for the
first time and that's why so much incredible

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00:33:06.120 --> 00:33:12.200
art came out and Keith Haring and all these people
that were just like having their voices heard

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and we did a talk with William Yang and when we showed
this work at Sydney World Pride and he said

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that what we want as gay people is our stories to
be told because for thousands of years those

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00:33:24.520 --> 00:33:30.840
voices weren't heard and so when gay liberation
happened and these artists were working their

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voices were so loud and so potent and they had such
a lifelong effect on us that everything I do

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as an artist I feel is in debt to those people that
we we're like they held that they handed us

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a torch almost in a way and we feel like we have
to keep shining and I didn't show young people

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00:33:49.640 --> 00:33:56.440
look at this history that we're like we're all connected
as queer people to our history and these

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00:33:56.440 --> 00:34:03.960
icons so we made these giant costumes and artworks
each emulating an element of those artists and

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00:34:03.960 --> 00:34:08.600
their story we did a lot of research but we didn't
want to just copy it we there had to be

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00:34:08.600 --> 00:34:12.760
the Huxley's version of Sylvesterville. I don't
know how they had opened the door for us and

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influenced us and we had we made 13 large works
of artists that were especially special to us

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and then we because it just kept going we made a
massive quilt with I think 45 artists on there

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that were chung on the wall and then we got community
to come in and share their stories

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with artists that they knew and just loved once
and now we have more quilt panels from those

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you know talking with people in the community and
we're learning about new artists we've never

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00:34:44.040 --> 00:34:49.800
heard of and we're teaching so it creates this really
beautiful dialogue we we um yeah brought

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people sent us images and we had them printed on
fabric and we had these workshops where we

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talked and told stories about these artists and these
people and we bejeweled the the quilt panels

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because they're based on the historical AIDS quilts
that people made in the late 80s and early

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90s which we were invited by Thorn Harbor the AIDS
community AIDS council in Victoria to come

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and see these and it was one of the most emotional
experiences I've ever had seeing these quilts

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brought out of all these beautiful people that people
should still be here and it was only that

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00:35:24.600 --> 00:35:30.440
we always say it was just timing you know like that
could have been us it was just um and so

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this project is about celebrating and honoring those
people and doing it in a way that was joyful

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and fun and because they were joyful and outrageous fun
artists and we didn't want them to be remembered

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in a a sorrow sad way I mean there's a lot of emotion
behind it but it's about the joy they gave us

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so we want our work to be joyful and we made a song
called Bloodlines which is an honor to tell their

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00:35:56.840 --> 00:36:05.080
story of all those beautiful artists and that that
beautiful era of disco where um queer people

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of color like they were making culture that's where
the all the exciting stuff happened was around

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queer people of color pretty much created that disco
joy and that that song is all a debt to that

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and we invited community from queer community in Melbourne
to be in the video with us and one of

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people with HIV with Jacob who was the curator of the
show is um an incredible dancer and curator and

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he he approached us from Sydney uh from Carriage
Works asking whether we had an idea to show at

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Carriage Works and we told him about Bloodlines and
he said uh we didn't know this but he said I'm

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I've been living with HIV for um I think it was 20
years and he said that this is so special and so

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important and he was working with Carriage Works for
World Pride and he said there was not a show in

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00:36:57.320 --> 00:37:03.080
World Pride that was dedicated to those voices so it
was this beautiful like it was almost like it

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was meant to be and Jacob was so kind and encouraging
and enabled us to make this work and we had a

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big performance as for Bloodlines where we invited artists
to respond to an artist or a song of someone

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that we had lost and it was this beautiful like experience
where it was like bringing those voices

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back for a night and and this project can only keep
growing because there are so many voices that

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need to be celebrated and we learned about one
in particular called Brenton Heathcurt

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who actually did an amazing performance and the NGA
had a show um called Don't Leave Me This Way

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which was uh that was so powerful in like I think 94
or 95 yeah I might be able to find the link from

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that and drop it into the chat for people to see.
So incredible that and Ted Gott was the curator

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and it was about art in the age of AIDS and Brenton
Heathcurt was a Sydney based performance

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artist that was was dying of AIDS at the time
but showed up in this incredible like latex

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body mold with an IV drip coming off and just wheeled
around and in a performance around the

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gallery and we didn't know about Brenton when we started
this project and through this some people

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told us about their work and now I'm so inspired
by what what they did and we're including an

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image of them in the latest quilt and it just um all
these voices and stories will keep coming in

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because it's so inspiring. What we might do at the
end of the interview if people can hang around a

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little bit after 115 we might play the full bloodlines
clip um at the end after we um say goodbye

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just so people can see it. We did have one question
from the audience about the mixture of

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self-initiated and commissioned art so they're wondering
is there you know is it difficult for

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you to be commissioned to produce something when everything
is so personal and bespoke I suppose

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to your particular style. It's it's really interesting
like like we talked about it took

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a lot of a long time for us to actually be able to
be artists in time or like you know and a lot

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of no's and a lot of rejection and it's interesting
now we do get people asking us to make things

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for you know commissions it um but we've had times
in the past where we've made something and

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that people have no they like that and I always think
it's why did you come? Yeah it's like it's

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too gay for them or too camp or too much and why did
you ask us? We had a funny experience where we

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were commissioned to make a film about the sex
life of plants for Heronswood Gallery in

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Victoria which is quite a conservative garden
nursery place and the man that commissioned

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us I don't think he quite I think he got the artist
mixed up I think he thought we were someone else

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We made this I love it it's a bit like Monty Python
or the Mighty Boosh it's but it's us

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explaining that we portray spinach and we portray bees
about them having sex because animal sex is

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much and is much wilder and more interesting than human
sex and we made it and it it was so full on

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that they they thought it was so full on that it
was banned from the gallery and they had Bill

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Henson opening the gallery and his work's much more
controversial than ours but he was there and he

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was like this work can't be shown it's so ridiculous
if I have to share it with you because it's really

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joyful and silly it's so silly but one of the people
that worked there said it's creating a sexually

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charged workplace with the question of bees and pollen
and it's so silly but sometimes they can

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question things backfire but so I yeah I don't think
we kind of can compromise that you know

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what we do you meet beautiful people along the
way like so in Melbourne at the moment there

395
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there's been this metro train tunnel thing they're
making and which is not great but but because of

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00:41:09.560 --> 00:41:15.800
that there's been a lot of buildings and hoardings
that needed to be like made beautiful so we were

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00:41:15.800 --> 00:41:22.440
commissioned by them to make murals and we an
incredible one bought us campus Christmas

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which was which they gave us a really great budget
to create and we celebrated the like

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00:41:27.960 --> 00:41:33.560
native Australian flora and fauna and made a Christmas
work that was really joyful and and

400
00:41:33.560 --> 00:41:39.160
not overly Christmassy in the traditional sense but
we got such beautiful response from that and

401
00:41:39.160 --> 00:41:43.880
that was commissioned and it was a way for us to
get our work into places that people wouldn't

402
00:41:43.880 --> 00:41:49.720
normally see it and I like public art for that purpose
because you're bringing art to people

403
00:41:49.720 --> 00:41:55.000
that wouldn't go to galleries and maybe changing people's
minds or opening their minds and that's

404
00:41:55.000 --> 00:42:01.000
why being commissioned to do stuff is great and we're
really fortunate that things like that come

405
00:42:01.000 --> 00:42:06.840
along because that also enables you to make your
normal work because we're always making stuff

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even if people want to see it or not. Now in our
exhibition that's open at the moment Artie100

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00:42:13.080 --> 00:42:18.440
we have a portrait of the two of you so you're used
to creating self-portraits in your own style

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00:42:18.440 --> 00:42:25.720
with no constraints. What was it like to sit for
a portrait for another artist? Well Sally

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is a friend of ours and had come to see our show 'Discordia'
which was the tagline was 'Everything

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00:42:33.560 --> 00:42:42.120
Happens for No Reason' but it was a stage show and artwork
that was celebrating the idea of 'Discordia'

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00:42:42.120 --> 00:42:48.200
which was which is a religion that was made like made
famous by the KLF if anyone remembers the KLF.

412
00:42:48.200 --> 00:42:51.160
I do! Oh my god I remember them!

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00:42:51.160 --> 00:42:58.520
Racing chaos and that there is no reason for life
and the idea that everything does happen for no

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00:42:58.520 --> 00:43:05.880
reason and it was this magical show that was just
bonkers and completely about the surrealism and

415
00:43:05.880 --> 00:43:12.440
how life you just have to like there is no rules and
no there's no right or wrong and Sally came

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00:43:12.440 --> 00:43:18.920
to this show and she she just really responded to it
and we've always both we've had a mutual love

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00:43:18.920 --> 00:43:25.800
of weeks and we had these wigs on in the show and
Sally and I always send each other wigs and

418
00:43:25.800 --> 00:43:31.080
Sally loves John Waters films as well and we just had
all these connections and she just said I want

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00:43:31.080 --> 00:43:37.560
to come to your studio and paint paint you paint
a portrait of you and um it's kind of like she

420
00:43:37.560 --> 00:43:44.920
wanted to still look dead inside yeah which was
such a great game it was a really good um

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00:43:44.920 --> 00:43:52.280
director direction for us I like that inside and um
and she we also talked about the history of um

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00:43:52.280 --> 00:44:00.200
of classical like portraiture like the last ways
um and the idea of the traditional portrait um

423
00:44:00.760 --> 00:44:07.480
which they're often are not very emotive um but strangely
it's my favorite like even like even

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00:44:07.480 --> 00:44:13.080
though she said dead inside I still get this this
sense of um there's this purpose to it and a

425
00:44:13.080 --> 00:44:19.960
connection between the two of us and it brings me such
joy this portrait it's very strange and and

426
00:44:19.960 --> 00:44:25.080
and I there's something it's my favorite one that's
been painted of us so there's been a couple of

427
00:44:25.080 --> 00:44:31.320
people that are taking portraits or painting and this
one um she captured something that's quite

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00:44:31.320 --> 00:44:37.880
magical and when it was in the Archibald at the Art
Gallery of South Wales we got interviewed on the

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00:44:37.880 --> 00:44:43.240
day they said they asked me a really serious question
and I said it's great to see more wigs

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00:44:43.240 --> 00:44:48.760
in the Archibald there's not enough of them and it and
that was the sound bite they used on the news

431
00:44:48.760 --> 00:44:55.880
and of course they did. Sally loved like she loves
nonsense and she's an incredible she uses the um

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00:44:55.880 --> 00:45:02.120
it's pointillism I think that she just dots and
dots and dots and she just works for so long

433
00:45:02.120 --> 00:45:08.200
getting that beautiful those patterns she's got a
great sense of humor what how did you find it

434
00:45:08.200 --> 00:45:13.000
no I loved it the portrait's really growing on me as
well because it's interesting to see someone's

435
00:45:13.000 --> 00:45:18.360
version of yourself but um yeah I think it's some
beautiful portrait and I love that those wigs

436
00:45:18.360 --> 00:45:25.400
are being um recorded yeah she also as Sally says
she loves she uses the word vaginal pink

437
00:45:25.400 --> 00:45:31.800
she loves that she said I love vaginal pink and like
we have to have and we've had been wearing

438
00:45:31.800 --> 00:45:38.200
this pink sequin um and she was like obsessed
with it and Sally wore it too Sally we we

439
00:45:38.200 --> 00:45:43.240
lent Sally a suit too and then popped her in a wig
she wore a wig for the opening of the Archibald

440
00:45:43.240 --> 00:45:49.160
all three of us looking like this because it's also
a reference to Colts as well which is kind

441
00:45:49.160 --> 00:45:55.160
of fun if not not all Colts but some queer Colts
I love the idea of Sally getting the

442
00:45:55.160 --> 00:46:00.280
duotone cards out and making sure that she's got
the right vaginal pink yeah she she loves it

443
00:46:00.280 --> 00:46:05.640
badge pink she's got it we've run out of time how's
this possible I could talk to you guys

444
00:46:05.640 --> 00:46:11.080
all afternoon but thank you so much for joining us
um today and on behalf of everybody who came

445
00:46:11.080 --> 00:46:15.240
today thank you so much for being so generous with
your stories and telling us so much about your

446
00:46:15.240 --> 00:46:19.720
art and life it's it's an inspiration to me and I
hope it's an inspiration to all of our viewers

447
00:46:19.720 --> 00:46:25.720
today as well so what we might do is say farewell
and um and play the bloodlines clip for anybody

448
00:46:25.720 --> 00:46:30.280
who'd like to hang around and watch thank you for having
us thank you for all this for a while yeah

449
00:46:30.280 --> 00:46:38.120
oh it's thank you thank you for listening yeah we'll
talk to you again soon you guys want to

450
00:46:38.120 --> 00:46:42.840
hang on the line I'll talk to you afterwards just this
bloodlines clip is it's just like a segment

451
00:46:42.840 --> 00:46:46.920
of it it's it's kind of spliced together it's not
the whole thing but the whole one is on our

452
00:46:46.920 --> 00:46:52.120
website if if people want to watch the whole thing
but we'll get them to drop that in the link to

453
00:46:52.120 --> 00:47:08.120
thanks Will thanks Garrett