Queer Drawing

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 20 queer and ally-identifying artists, with each unique drawing a window into a lived experience of queerness in all its diversity.

The exhibition will open on Thursday, February 6th, from 6 to 8 p.m. During the first week of Mardi Gras, on Saturday, February 15th, from 6 to 8 p.m., there will be an additional opening celebration. Join the artists and the 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 both 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 spans a variety of approaches, from intricate observational sketches to bold, abstract gestures. Collectively, they explore themes of love, identity, community, and resistance. Through the act of drawing, the participating artists make visible the intersections of their queerness with the broader cultural, social, and political landscapes. Each of the 17 artists invites you into their own unique personal queer landscape.

QUEER DRAWING features the work of:

Andrew Nicholls, Dan Gladden, 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, Scott Elk, Tango Conway, Yiorgos Zafiriou.