Rory Midhani is a talented, young Berlin-based illustrator whose work centers around nightlife, sex, queerness and trans experiences. The self-described “twinkie trans boy artist’s” cartoons, drawings, and murals illustrate light-hearted, lively, and silly little scenes, but look more closely and you’ll see they’re packed with underlying social commentary. His latest work takes you into a world out of sex, parties, clubs, and cardboard puppets. If you feel ready for his hilariously explicit work, read on.
A Rory Midhani illustration won’t just give you a funny drawing of a cat or coffee mug – no, not his style. He chooses to depict queer life and flamboyant characters from a trans perspective. What might sound heavy at first, never fails to make you giggle with childlike ease. You’re jumping right into a quirky story, autobiographical or imagined, that Rory might have cut out of his empty pizza box or scribbled on an empty piece of paper a moment before. He draws you into Berlin’s most infamous, darkest corners – and makes you smile.
“Existing as queer and trans people in a society that isn’t designed for us can be extremely hard,” Rory explains. “The best thing I can think to do in the face of that is to make art about our lives that is triumphantly FUN.”
His exhibition “Confessions in a Darkroom” opens this Sunday, 7 pm at R_1992 gallery and presents 50 pieces of personal work from the past 2 years telling stories of parties, cruising, drugs and sex in Berlin’s queer nightlife, but does also show scenes that aren’t as ‘hardcore’ of drag shows, pool parties or roller skating lesbians. “Many of the pieces in the show are about darkrooms,” Rory explains when we ask him about the title of his exhibition. “99% of the time when I’m in a darkroom and I disclose my transness the response is “okay, cool”. It’s dark, obviously, and that gives me a lot of control over how much anyone I might meet in there get’s to know about me and my fine trans body.”
by Rory Midhani
Opening March 18, 2018, 19h
Exhibition March 19-31, 2018
R_1992, Kirschstrasse 25, 10557 Berlin-Moabit
