Leigh Bowery (26 March 1961 – 31 December 1994) was an Australian performance artist, club promoter, and fashion designer. His performances stood out for their bold costumes and makeup, and were known for being creative, flamboyant, and sometimes controversial.
He spent much of his adult life in London, where he became a model and muse for the English painter Lucian Freud. Bowery’s friend and fellow performer Boy George said he saw Bowery perform many times, and that the shows “never ceased to impress or revolt.”
Bowery grew up in Sunshine, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. He studied music from a young age, played piano, and later spent a year studying fashion and design at RMIT. In 1980, he moved to London, saying, “I was so itchy to see new things and to see the world, that I just left.”
Bowery became involved in the London club scene. He was known in underground clubs in both London and New York, as well as in art and fashion circles. Browery stood out by wearing unique, creative outfits he made himself. He shared a flat with artist Gary Barnes (known as “Trojan”) and David Walls, and designed costumes for all three. Together, they became known in clubs as the “Three Kings”. Bowery also appeared in magazines and on television, including commercials for Pepe Jeans and Rifat Ozbek.[citation needed]
In 2005, the National Portrait Gallery of Australia acquired a portrait of Bowery in a fur coat, taken by photographer David Gwinnutt. Two years later, the National Portrait Gallery in London bought Gwinnutt’s portrait of Bowery and Trojan (Barnes), which is also featured in the Violette Editions book.
Bowery worked as a club promoter and, along with Tony Gordon, opened the club Taboo at Maximus in Leicester Square in 1985. Taboo quickly became a popular spot, often drawing long lines. Drugs, especially ecstasy, were common among club-goers. The club challenged sexual norms, embraced “polysexualism,” and played a wide range of music. DJs included Jeffrey Hinton, Rachel Auburn, and Mark Lawrence. Regular guests were Boy George, George Michael, John Galliano, Judy Blame, Bodymap, Michael Clark, John Maybury, and Cerith Wyn Evans. Taboo ran for 18 months before closing in 1986.
As a fashion designer, Bowery held several shows featuring his collections in London, New York, and Tokyo. His designs included creative costumes, makeup, wigs, and headgear, which were often bold and sometimes kitschy. He also designed costumes for the Michael Clark Dance Company. When the company performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1987, Bowery received a Bessie Award for his work on No Fire Escape in Hell.
In 1988, while in London, Bowery met painter Lucian Freud at his club, Taboo. They were introduced by their mutual friend, artist Cerith Wyn Evans. Freud had previously seen Bowery perform at the Anthony d’Offay Gallery in London. For his first public appearance in the fine art world, Bowery posed behind a one-way mirror at the gallery, wearing a flamboyant costume. His body and the manipulation of his flesh to create personas.
This involved almost masochistically taping his torso and piercing his cheeks with pins in order to hold masks, as well as wearing outlandish makeup. Freud said, “The way he edits his body is amazingly aware and amazingly abandoned”. In return, Bowery said of Freud: “I love the psychological aspect of his work – in fact, I sometimes felt as if I had been undergoing psychoanalysis with him … His work is full of tension. Like me, he is interested in the underbelly of things”.
Bowery posed for several large full-length paintings that are considered some of Freud’s best work. These paintings often exaggerated Bowery’s 6-foot-3-inch (1.91 m), 17-stone (110 kg; 240 lb) frame, making him appear even more monumental. The works made a strong impression during Freud’s 1994 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Freud described Bowery as “perfectly beautiful” and said, “His wonderfully buoyant bulk was an instrument I felt I could use, especially those extraordinary dancer’s legs.” Freud also noted that Leigh was naturally shy and gentle, and that his flamboyant persona was partly a way to protect himself.
Although Bowery was openly gay, he married his long-time female companion Nicola Bateman on 13 May 1994 in Tower Hamlets, London, calling it “a personal art performance.” He had been HIV positive for six years, but very few people knew. When he was absent from public life, he usually said he had gone to Papua New Guinea. His wife did not learn that Bowery had HIV until he was admitted to the hospital in late November 1994. He died seven months after their wedding, on New Year’s Eve 1994 (though his father says he actually died in the early hours of New Year’s Day, 1995), from an AIDS-related illness at Middlesex Hospital in Westminster, London, five weeks after being admitted. Lucian Freud paid for Bowery’s body to be returned to Australia.Australia.
He died on 31 December 1994 at the age of 33 in Westminster, London, England.
