The name Terence Higgins sits on queer people's lips with both pride and poignancy. Terence’s biography as a House of Commons Hansard reporter, barman and DJ is largely overshadowed by him being one of the first people in the UK to die of an AIDS-related illness. There's a charity named after him that seeks to educate and remind us about sexual health and emotional wellbeing.

Wondering whether this portrait ‘looks queer’ or not, it’s clear that this drawing doesn’t conform to conventions of the historical, or even modern, painted portrait. There are no heavy oils in gilded frames and gone are the moody black-and-white photographs of popstars. In this contemporary portrait, we find something that feels radically different – a bare-chested man, almost sketch-like, red pencil perhaps echoing the red AIDS ribbon we don each December. Terence's face is shown three times at different stages in life – a life cut short. There’s a nervous uncertainty here and the triptych of faces reminds us of the multiple lives queer people live. Instead of a portraitist seeking to portray a definitive version of the sitter, here Curtis Holder reminds us of the shadows and memories we carry with us though life and death.

Encouraged and thoughtful, and noticing Terence’s neighbour on the wall – the unashamedly queer artist Derek Jarman (NPG 6680) – we are forced to remember that queer portraits are rarely far from oppression. Out of the corner of our eye, the figure of Margaret Thatcher looms large across the room – she who, through her ignorance and her malice, damaged both of these men's lives and those of countless other people.

The text above is from ‘Does this portrait look queer to you?’ my winning essay in the Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ Critical Writing competition, 2024. You can read the full text here.