Queer Portraits: Kim Leutwyler
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Leutwyler has come to focus on painting as a medium, using historical norms of portraiture to upend heterosexual norms of identity and sexuality.
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Nanda\Hobbs
July, 2020
Queer Portraits is a collection of six new works by Kim Leutwyler portraying queer people who are cisgender, trans, non-binary & gender diverse. It is a preview of a large body of work by Leutwyler’s being created for a solo exhibition to coincide with Sydney Mardi Gras Festival in February 2021. This exhibition was made possible when Leutwyler became a recipient of the ANZ + Sydney Mardi Gras Community Grant.
Leutwyler will host a Q&A with several of the sitters, inviting the community to start a dialogue around queer feminist representation in activism and the arts. Sitters include Writer, Actor and DJ Faustina Agolley, Rapper and multidisciplinary artist Jamaica Moana, Tomboy pop Musician HANDSOME and Poet Lucy Elizabeth Christopher.
Viewers can immerse themselves in an augmented reality experience using smartphones or tablets (Simply download the Artvive App from the QR code pictured below or via your App Store or Google Play). Imagery and sound will float in the room around the paintings, including video interviews with the portrait sitters, still images of important moments from their lives, time-lapses of the portraits being painted, audio soundscapes and more. Leutwyler’s ‘sitters’ each engage with the politics of identity, community and activism in their own unique way.
Even today, queer exhibitions are quite rare—there have been a total of under 50 in museums and major art institutions across the world. Leutwyler has come to focus on painting as a medium, using historical norms of portraiture to upend heterosexual norms of identity and sexuality.
Born in America, Sydney-based Kim Leutwyler migrated to Australia in 2012. She works in a variety of media including painting, installation, ceramics, printmedia and drawing. Leutwyler holds concurrent bachelor degrees in Studio and Art History from Arizona State University, and additionally graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a Painting and Drawing degree.
Leutwyler’s current body of work features paintings exploring notions of beauty, gender and queer identity. She has come to focus on painting as a medium because of its primarily masculine history in the western art canon. Her artwork has been exhibited in multiple galleries and museums throughout Australia and the United States.
Some of Leutwyler’s recent accolades include being selected as a finalist in the Archibald and Sulman Prizes at the Art Gallery of NSW.
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