The Pink Vampire

Since 2022, my Drag persona “The Pink Vampire” has studied & photographed Drag artists and artistry in the State of Arkansas (USA). Her goal is to establish the serious artistic, political, sociological, intellectual & cultural value of Drag Art.

Artist Statement - The Pink Vampire.

Drag art has long been a way for Queer people to survive through, and thrive during, periods of oppression and persecution.

The government of the State of Arkansas, alongside many others in the United States, has explicitly targeted the Queer & Trans community for elimination: ending health care for trans children, excluding people who are trans from many aspects of everyday life, attempting to ban Drag art, and creating laws and promoting the most toxic parts of our culture to make Queer people feel physically unsafe and unwelcome. 

Through it all, the resilience of the state’s Queer community has been palpable. Nowhere is this more evident than in the proliferation of Drag art in Arkansas.

Over the last 2 years, acting under my drag persona “The Pink Vampire”, I have studied and photographed Drag artists and artistry in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Drag art in Arkansas is varied and expansive, rivaling what one might expect to see in a much bigger and more metropolitan city. It includes traditional gender impersonation, alt-drag, burlesque, acts that combine drag with other performance arts (e.g., tap dance, magic), and Drag theater. The performers live and work together to host hundreds of shows a month across Arkansas, a state with fewer people than most large American cities. 

Arkansan Drag artists live at the intersection of race, age, disability and gender: young and old; male, female, and non-binary; Black, white, and Latinx; CIS and trans. They are the manifestation of a resilient community that won’t cower in the face of cruel and brutal political and cultural oppression and, increasingly, overt physical violence.

My photographic archive documenting this community is massive, and is primarily hosted on Instagram. This archive could disappear overnight, should the social media powers wish it so.

My goal is to establish the serious artistic, political, sociological, intellectual and cultural value of Drag Art in Arkansas (and throughout the Midwest and Southern US) by printing a magazine that:

1) serves as a permanent visual diary of Arkansas Drag art,

2) preserves a record of Arkansas Drag and Queer history, and,

3) chronicles Arkansas Drag culture.

In creating these photos, I am heavily guided by my own life experiences as a military veteran (US Army 1993 - 2004), a lawyer advocating for the disabled (2003 - present), a father of 3 children, and a person who came out as Queer (trans non-binary and pansexual) in their 50’s.