Loverboy’s Fallon Gold has been in love with the art of Wayne Hollowell for years. From his early collaborative films with Rupaul (they made Mahogony II), to his kitsch, camp, massive portraits of stars such as Diana Ross, Liza Minnelli, Marilyn Monroe (all the gay food groups) Wayne produces instant queer classics. Wayne has also approached topics as diverse as the death of his favourite gay porn stars, female killers and homosexual saints (for Wayne these are earth-walking gay icons). After Orlando, Wayne diverted from his celebrity portraits to capture those lost in that horrific shooting spree. Fallon spoke to Wayne about this profound artwork, his other wonderful series and about the glory that is Morgan Fairchild’s ‘hair’.

I know it may be obvious, but can you tell us why you needed to do this painting?
I just was thinking about how much of my 20s and 30s were spent in nightclubs in Atlanta and in NYC. It’s the last thing you would ever think to happen in such a place and it was so sad to me. I wanted to show all of them as they would have been minutes before, having a great time, all together, laughing. I was going to do a series on mass shootings and our corrupt leaders who are owned by the NRA but I don’t know. We have so many shootings, I’d never finish the series.

 

You’ve commemorated queer people who have passed on before – I’m particularly thinking of your Dead Porn Stars series. Can you say something about that series because it is very powerful and many people may be unaware that so many male porn stars have died tragically.
Omg, well I was facebook friends with one of my favorite stars, Wilfried Knight. He was so funny. He had the most vicious sense of humor especially over Taylor Swift lol. I was following him and then he posted that his lover had all this drama at his job and ended up hanging himself. He was posting these kind of sad, macabre messages and then 2 weeks later he had also killed himself. I was just in shock! I started realizing that so many of my favorites had committed suicide (Roman Ragazzi, Arpad Miklos). I’m so fascinated by that industry to start with as they truly are such great STARS so I just wanted to pay homage to them. Again, I still want to do about 25 more so I would have 30 in total. I think it would look so great in a gallery in West Hollywood. I remember seeing Joey Stefano at show palace in NYC in 1990 and he was on the stage so high and drunk. His eyes were barely open and he was holding on to the pole for dear life but he was still such a star, so glamorous. There was just something magic about him. I love the tragic downfalls of stars. Which leads to my Death Becomes You series. And also, maybe even my Lady Killers series where I painted my favorite female murderers.

You and I both love to address the tragic side of stardom in our work and it’s a broader through-line in yours. We’ve talked about this together a lot, how it’s a particularly queer fascination. I’d also say it is a very camp one – related to queer of course. But where many people would see camp as always about fun, frivolity, jokey, I’d argue that camp can exist in a more ‘serious’ capacity too. And I think that this is the space where camp and the tragic collide. It’s not making light of tragedy or joking about it, it’s about the heightenedness of these tragic events, the epicness. Do you know what I mean? And this is what I see in your work.
Yes, I don’t want to make light of the tragedy at all. I love it. I think it adds to their legendary status. It’s also in a way very romantic. I wanted the Death Becomes You series to show them in the final seconds. To show how Jayne Mansfield must have been so peaceful riding down that swampy road at 2am not knowing that truck was stalled in the darkness ahead… These stars will live forever thanks to their films. I was just watching the scene in Valley of the Dolls where Sharon Tate takes the overdose with the gorgeous theme playing and a huge close up of her on the pillow. I just imagined her head in Susan Atkin’s lap, looking that gorgeous and doomed. I think our gay sensibility romanticizes these things more, maybe. I do wish Judy would not have been found on the toilet (maybe she could have been in one of her sequined pantsuits lying on a bed or, even better, in her Dorothy costume and ruby slippers surrounded by her old glossy glamour shots). I just chose to paint her looking lost and sad before the Seconal.

There are so many amazing queer artists around and a subgroup, like us, who deal a lot with celebrity portraiture and stardom as our subject. This is a proper art movement isn’t it?
Yes! I hope it will become a true movement in our lifetime. So many amazing artists explore this. You, the wonderful Rocky Helminski. And I think we are able to do very emotional pieces because these icons and films were so much a part of our youth and life today. I have always been obsessed with stars. They gave us so much! I mean omg, Liz Taylor. I just finally saw The Driver’s Seat and I’m obsessed with it. I don’t even think they can know how great they were and how much the gave this world We have to keep that alive with our art. It’s appreciation on the highest level. There is a friend I have on facebook that has just started watching Murder She Wrote and is so obsessed. He is always posting these great screenshots of Angela in disguise or danger and I told him he should be painting these. It’s just so great!

Because we all live spread out across the world we can’t, alas, have our own little physical commune somewhere, being decadent and queer artists together. BUT we can have a virtual one. Being online has really changed the game for artists and getting our work seen, hasn’t it?
Yes, I love that through facebook and instagram I have met you and Rocky and so many other artists. It’s very hard to get a gallery to look at your work, so to have all these other artists giving you encouragement and feedback is so great. It really helps because for me painting is very solitary and sometimes you can just get so discouraged thinking that in the end these will all end up in the trash heap. I hope not, but it’s back and forth with me.

If you could have anyone sit for you, who would be your dream subject for a portrait? And how would you paint them?
My dream subject would be Marlon Brando in 1949, nude followed by Gregory Harrison, 1977, nude.

What’s next for you?
I don’t know. I’m trying to decide on my next series. For some reason I am always drawn to the women and lines from Tennessee Williams movies but then again I want to do a series of Morgan Fairchild, Angie Dickinson, Farrah… All with guns but perfect hair (I am obsessed with Morgan Fairchild’s thriller from 1982, The Seduction. I love her perfect hair no matter what the situation and when she is in a towel and heels running with a shotgun to shoot Andrew Stevens (who I love). Gosh. And I love Sue Ellen Ewing from Dallas and of course the women of Dynasty. I am also working on a screenplay about this nymphomaniac murderous nurse named Jane Toppin that I discovered doing my Lady Killers series. It’s called Jolly Jane. I would love to direct the film version of Scotty Bower’s great tell all Full Service and also the book You’ll Never Spa In This Town Again about John Travolta’s sleazy spa habits. Both books are essentials and need to be on film. I love how the author of You’ll Never Spa In This Town Again spends half his life (maybe more) in steam rooms and saunas waiting for Travolta and is then traumatized by Travolta’s antics. It’s so great.

I know your passion for Mimi is equal to Loverboy’s – what’s your favourite Mariah song?
Well I love the Glitter soundtrack. I love that film so much, it’s a true classic – the last scene is so great. She was truly amazing in Precious so I think she’s a good actress when she has a director to reign her in but I much prefer when they do not reign her in and we have a masterpiece like Glitter. I think she would have been great in a thriller like The Seduction. Speaking of thrillers my all-time favorite is Lauren Bacall’s The Fan. The musical number of her show Never Say Never is so amazing and “Hearts not Diamonds” is one of the greatest movie songs ever.

Do you have a favourite Mariah look or moment?
I love when she wears the lingerie and then will pair the long jacket with it and try to act all coy and shy as if a windstorm blew her gown off and all she has left are her garters and lacy undies. And I love that Barbra at 72 still wears a negligee on her new album cover which is a work of art in itself. The bath soaps… the flowers… the red wig behind her… I love in the movie Nuts where Richard Dreyfuss is going through her things and finds those glossy photos of Barbra in the white stockings.  I just wish there was a film of that photo session. Like you, I am praying that her long-time assistant, Renata, will write a wonderful tell all on her years with Barbra.

 

See more of Wayne’s work on his Website