Dean Tirkot has developed the first installation of a new body of work that focuses on the seemingly strange, but beautiful phenomenon of gender-ambiguous characters created by some of the theatrical crafts more evoking queer performance artists, including Glitta Supernova, Betty Grumble, Aaron Manhattan, MC Gaffy and Dallas Dellaforce. Dean’s large-scale photographic portraits reveal a glimpse of the real person behind the manifested façade; the person the audience never gets to see, to give an unusual insight into the performer’s conscious transformation. While the stage performance is always hidden by movement – smoke and mirrors – this exhibition will lift a corner of the velvet curtain, and reveal some of the truth beneath the illusion, and in that mix of fact and fiction deliver an insight into an ever stranger thing: the world of metamorphosis.
Beside each photograph, to augment that strange sense of dislocation from reality, will be a short piece by writer Wil Gritten. His mission is to catch the elusive essence of that transmutation and to amplify it, to grasp and maintain the momentary swirling eddy of change and to describe its surreal purity: the mask half on, before the transformation is complete. Dean Tirkot is a Sydney-based photographic portrait artist who is currently using a large format 8×10” Deardoff field camera to capture unprecedented sharpness and clarity. The intention of this slow and cumbersome process is to achieve an honest and un-manipulated aesthetic that reveals beauty in the realism of his subjects, to contrast the mainstream conformities of superficial idealism and perceived, aspirational beauty.
Dean is currently studying at the Sydney College of the Arts where he is completing his MSA. In 2011 he was awarded the Kings Cross portrait prize, and his work has been a finalist in the Doug Moran prize 2011, 2009 and in 2007, when he received the highly commended award. Simultaneously he has been a finalist in 2011 and 2009 in Art & About’s Sydney Life exhibition. Since 1997 Dean’s work has appeared in numerous group shows, as well as commercial editorial and advertising mediums domestic and worldwide. (Wil Gritten is a Welsh author living in Bondi, and the author of Letting Go, The Long Dark and What Go Around Come Around, Kid.)
This exhibition is proudly sponsored by Pix On Location
Kickstart our month-long festival of the arts with music, photography, and community on the shores of the dazzling Bondi Beach. Be the first to know who won the 2024 Head On Photo Awards and get a taste of the photographs redefining visual storytelling.
Enthralling. Enchanting. Extraordinary. Discover exceptional photography for free around Sydney during the festival 8 Nov–1 Dec 2024
