Greg Bailey: Lavender Boy
1st August, 2024 – 1st September, 2024
Helm gallery
15 North Road
Brighton
BN1 1YA
Helm Gallery is thrilled to announce its upcoming exhibition titled “Lavender Boy” in collaboration with portrait photographer Greg Bailey. This extraordinary exhibition showcases Bailey’s first-ever gallery collection of drag portraiture and coincides with the world- renowned Brighton Pride. The carefully curated collection of vividly coloured photographs represents a timeline of Bailey’s career as a portrait photographer and his unwavering commitment to the LGBTQ+ community.
Lavender Boy is on show at Helm Gallery, Brighton, 1 August – 1 September (coinciding with Brighton Pride 2–5 Aug). Events:
The Opening Party, Thur 1 August 7–10pm, free to register
The Pop Up Photoshoot, Thur 8 August 6–9pm, £10 ticket
An Audience With Greg Bailey, Wed 14 August 7–8pm, £8 ticket includes a drink
Image courtesy of artist and Helm gallery
Through these images, the exhibition celebrates the beauty, creativity, and essence of Drag while shining a light on its often-underrepresented corners and individuals. “Lavender Boy” offers a retrospective exploration of Bailey’s personal journey and the artforms of the queer community; from the launch of his groundbreaking magazine “Alright Darling?” in 2015 to the creation of a photography book and successful podcast by the same name. Collaborating with emerging talents, Bailey’s photographic lens magnifies and empowers LGBTQ+ voices while showcasing the boundless creativity of the queer community.
Image courtesy of artist and Helm gallery
Bailey uses colour to express the explosion of creativity within the LGBTQ+ community, and to acknowledge the colour lavender’s symbolic role within the culture’s development throughout the 20th century. Heavy mauves and decadent purples of previous generations became lighter and more fashionable with women, with lavenders and lilacs taking on a more feminine association.
This in turn attracted a queer aesthetic, and became a slang term for effeminate, homosexual men. “A streak of lavender ran through him” – wrote Carl Sandburg in reference to Abraham Lincoln. In early 1970’s America, the hanky code – a system of colour coded handkerchiefs or bandanas – became an integral part of the gay male community for nonverbally communicating one’s sexual preferences and fetishes. The mixing of binary associated colours, baby blue and baby pink create the colour lavender – therefore wearing a lavender hanky represented one’s attraction to Drag Queens or that you were/are Drag yourself.
Image courtesy of artist and Helm gallery
The term “Lavender Boy” also has a more personal symbolism for Bailey. His grandmother used to use the term to describe gay men. He never quite knew if she was using it affectionately or otherwise, but for him there was a softness to it, a calm soothing warmth and happiness that felt beautiful, natural – not offensive in the slightest.
“Drag has been propelled from being a subsector of the gay community into the spotlight of today’s culture. I’m proud to be part of and to document a scene that’s beautiful and powerful. Its strength doesn’t come from dominance, oppression or conformity, but from love, happiness and inclusivity”. Greg Bailey,’ Alright Darling?’
Like many, Bailey struggled with the concept of masculinity, and an underlying sense of “being too gay.” Whilst he identified as a gay man he also felt pulled between “being manly enough to be attractive but fruity enough to set myself apart from straight men, which is all very toxic, and luckily something that isn’t as prevalent in today’s queer youth.”
Image courtesy of artist and Helm gallery
Discovering Drag opened a creative space in which he immediately felt a “great connection with being able to experience gender expression and gender play.” Referring to himself as “a spectator and documenter” of the scene, it gave him access to other’s stories and experiences, and ultimately set him on the path “to doing what I do as an artist”. His sense of “being too gay” was replaced with a renewed sense of inspiration and by extension an acceptance of his own evolving identity as an artist and queer person.
Lavender Boy is on show at Helm Gallery, Brighton, 1 August – 1 September (coinciding with Brighton Pride 2–5 Aug). Events:
The Opening Party, Thur 1 August 7–10pm, free to register
The Pop Up Photoshoot, Thur 8 August 6–9pm, £10 ticket
An Audience With Greg Bailey, Wed 14 August 7–8pm, £8 ticket includes a drink
Greg Bailey: Lavender Boy opens on the 1st of August, 2024 until 1st of September, 2024 at Helm gallery
©2024 Helm gallery
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