9725:0, 2013

Oil in canvas, performance

Exhibited at Curtin University, Western Australia

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Perth was founded with 9725 male convicts. A culture of enforced masculinity remains central to Perth’s identity. The often cited fact that Perth is the “most isolated city in the world” reinforces a public survivalist mentality. However underneath this LGBTIQ histories tell a very different version of Perth, one of commixtures of intimacies, friendships and love that resists standard colonial survival hetero narratives. This series is part of an ongoing project to paint these 9725 men in sexually explicit and erotic poses to memorialise a different, largely untold history. The exhibition was accompanied with a broken and error filled rendition of the national anthem.