A key member of the performance art and drag scene in 1980s London, Scottish artist Donald Urquhart’s work began as flyers, posters and wall decorations for ‘The Beautiful Bend’, an exuberantly camp club night that he co-founded in the early 1990s. His ink drawings celebrate the faded glamour and dark histories of Hollywood sirens with black humour and pristine graphic skill. Davis Scowl is a portrait of Bette Davis in her role in The Anniversary: a one-eyed, domineering, psychologically twisted mother hell-bent on ruining her children’s lives. In doubling the image, Urquhart mirrors Davis’s on-screen character with her real-life persona, as unflatteringly portrayed in a tell-all biography written by her daughter. The work forms part of the series ‘Peroxides on Parole’: executed in black and white, these drawings point to the duplicity of fame and its unattainable ideals. Initially conceived as party advertisements, Urquhart’s portraits become degraded effigies of adoration, his icons’ most personal and very human flaws made property for public circulation.
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