Ed Woodham

Visiting Saint Petersburg was an opportunity to create a subversive, gay expressionist public performance. Days before coming to Saint Petersburg, Pussy Riot had been imprisoned and the governor of the city declared being gay illegal. I had to respond. I took on the role of Fancy, a fop-flaneur strolling Nevsky Prospect and surrounding areas, donning a flamboyant costume, a wig, and too much outrageous jewelry. As I strolled, I crafted a photomontage of Fancy sashaying the streets of St. Petersburg and posing at landmarks, stores, plazas, fountains, and on the bridges of the canals.During the excursion, I serendipitously came across a plaza where artists were selling kitsch paintings and sketching portraits of tourists. Fancy bargained with one of the artists ( the only one who spoke English) to sketch him. The artist agreed, asking Fancy, “are you a rockstar?” and “what’s going on?” and as he was explaining suddenly Fancy found himself swarmed by the other portrait artists, who began to sketch him as well. Fancy became the epicenter of activity, as he was surrounded by artists sketching him, who were then surrounded by lots of Russian tourists gathering to see what was going on, creating concentric circles of modeling and observation.