These light purple paintings are a reference to an iconic symbol used by the LGBTQIA+ Community. Beginning in the mid-70’s and staying popular afterwards for around a decade until the beginning of the AIDS/HIV Crisis, hankies would be placed in the back pocket of queer men’s jeans so that other queer people could identify them and recognize what they preferred or enjoyed sexually. Different colored hankies were code for different things; gray means bondage, navy blue told someone’s preference on sexual positions based on which back pocket it was placed in.

I’ve chosen to work with the hanky’s code for Drag Queen, or the lavender hanky, to depict outstanding examples of drag artists of the past and present on top of the paisley pattern of a hanky. The inclusion of the hanky in this series isn’t meant to spotlight it’s sexual nature, but rather to highlight the community’s resilience and creativity to exist in a world that didn’t accept or acknowledge them, which still continued to this day.

It’s a meeting of queer history’s symbolic and iconic hankies with today’s freedom to express oneself as they desire. .

This series has come into a new meaning as states across the United States propose legislation that bans Drag in public places. These paintings are a middle finger to these anti-queer ideas.