Breathing life into queer art

For visual artist Daniel Garbade, the queer community has been a major influence in his body of work, writes Neha Kirpal

Garbade’s recent work, Identity, speaks about the female, and a masculine side in each one of us

An independent Swiss visual artist since the early eighties, Spain-based Daniel Garbade has worked primarily on oil painting, creating fictional portraits to portray the human being in all his facets. “I start all my works with drawings. I love the direct and clean line of pencil drawing,” he says. In his early years as an
artist, Garbade did a lot of etchings, in which every single line made on the plate counts.

“This direct line which you cannot erase gives the freshness and authenticity of the work,” he explains. Over the course of time, he began introducing other techniques in his works, like photography. “I like to play with contrast between different materials, so I make big collages and use clothing as a symbol of time past and identity,” he says.

As an LGBTQ rights advocate, the queer community is a major influence in Garbade’s body of work, and he often uses his art to portray their issues. He derives inspiration from personal experiences and encounters.

According to him, the more personal a work of art, the more unique and authentic it becomes. “I like to tell personal stories in my pictures as they can also help to inform and change our society to a more open relationship with LGBTQ issues,” he says. Living in a very permissive environment in Switzerland and Spain, Garbade had the opportunity to meet a lot of people from the gay community.

“They told me about their lives and experiences. Some had sad stories to tell and others had a testimony of beautiful love affairs,” he adds.

Garbade recently had an exhibition at the Swiss Embassy in New Delhi, which was part of the Queer Art and Real Life event. Garbade was invited to speak on a panel along with art curator and writer Dr Alka Pande.

At the show, Garbade displayed his recent photography works in context with pieces of clothing stuck on photographs of men — a brassiere on a boy’s body to talk about one’s identity or a pair of female knickers on a soldier’s chest to question the idea of masculinity in the army.

“These works speak about identity, the female, and a masculine side in each one of us,” he says.

Garbade informs that although the word ‘queer’ was a rather negative description at the beginning of its use, it was soon adapted to speak of diversity and gay life.

Talking about the history of the ‘Queer Art’ movement, he explains that queer art in the middle of the last century was still something half forbidden. However, due to its fame with renowned artists, such as David Hockney and Keith Haring, people started becoming curious about it and figured that queer is normal. This helped give a brighter understanding of queer life. Garbade believes that queer art will certainly go a long way in helping the cause of the LGBT community globally. “Having met in New Delhi some extraordinary young talent who dare approach queer art publicly, I’m sure it will be helpful for the cause,” he adds.

Apart from queer art, some of the other themes and subjects that find resonance in his work include current events from around the world.

“News from around the world, even of very small importance can always be a great theme for a work of art,” he says. Garbade likes to portray the present in his work—what happens and his reaction towards it. In this respect, he draws inspiration even from The Beatles who cut out newspaper articles to compose some of their songs.

“I try to do the same with my works. I like to take pictures of our present time. If they tell an intimate story about someone, I get interested,” he says. Of late, he is also approaching the issue of mobile phone use in our daily lives.

In the past, Garbade has also done castings for several Hollywood and French films. He started very young to help on the sets of TV commercials, where he learned the ropes. Being fortunate to have made a career in the industry, he later worked as a prop manager with famous directors and actors, such as Fred Zinneman and Sean Connery. The art department made him conscious of the importance of light, shades and colours.

Further, working in casting as well as a photographer, he learned to observe and learn about different characters and personalities. Garbade has also been working with the American Foundation for Aids Research, in New York, since the early nineties, when AIDS first came into prominence. “The mixture of art in their auctions as well as the involvement of well-known actors helped enormously to lower the stigma of only gays having the virus,” he says.

Soon after his show in Delhi, Garbade wrapped up his exhibition at the Thomso 22 Festival in Roorkee with his new clothes-related works. He plans to use pieces related to those in his next individual show at the Institute for Arab and Mediterranean Cultures (ICAM) in Geneva in December. There, he will play with elements of the traditional folklore art of Switzerland and Spain in contrast with new issues, such as war and narcissism.

He also held another exhibition on narcissism called Selfies of the Past in Toledo. For this, he made a reproduction of Trinity by El Greco, with hundreds of small drawings depicting people clicking selfies.

At the show, Garbade invited spectators to take selfies in front of his painting and asked them to send them to him. With the pictures, he plans to construct a new painting. “It is my way of reminding the viewer that we prefer to click selfies of ourselves in front of an artwork, rather than really appreciating the artwork displayed,” he concludes.