LEIGH BOWERY___ ARTIST
There have been few, if any, figures in Australia’s more recent past, that have left a legacy as strong as Leigh Bowery.
Coming from a religious family, with his parents’ devotees of the Salvation Army Church, Leigh broke away from his conservative Sunshine home on the outskirts of Melbourne and headed for London in 1980. At a time when the New Romantic period was well on its way in London and worldwide, Leigh presented as one of the most outrageous figures to strut the British pavements.
His sister Bronwyn, a couple of years younger than Leigh, shares with Fluoro some of her earliest memories of growing up with her truly avant-garde sibling. As Bronwyn recalls in this exclusive interview with John Saint Michel, Leigh’s attraction to art, performance and to fashion could be seen in his formative years – later observing the way he could transform himself while creating new perspectives, some of which sent shockwaves when he briefly returned to Melbourne to stage his fashion show.
While his parents could barely accept his antics within the privacy of their home, it must have come as a crushing blow seeing their son in public adorn an enlarged penis strapped to his waist in the name of fashion! And while Leigh’s parents encouraged their children to be different, their church leanings certainly didn’t mean standing out from others.
Painted by the eminent British artist Lucien Freud, Leigh has become not just a standout from the crowd, but a major artist of the 20thcentury. He not only transformed himself in the way he dressed and performed (with leading dancer and choreographer Michael Clark) but literally changed the way we have come to appreciate art. Leigh Bowery remains one of Australia’s most talented and still controversial figures.
Fluoro (F): Describe your sibling relationship with Leigh?
Bronwyn Bowrey-Ireland (B): Leigh and I were born 18 months apart. My mother was caring for our maternal grandmother who had suffered several strokes. So Leigh and I quickly learnt that our mother was busy and that we had to entertain ourselves and this we did. We learnt to the play the piano, to sing together, to dance together and to laugh together. We had jokes that only we knew about. We were entertained by the world of cinema and television. We watched endless number of old movies, musicals and television series. We experienced Countdown together on Sunday night, learning all the lyrics to the latest songs. We thought Molly Meldrum was cool and so lucky to get to talk to all the pop stars. Leigh announced one morning to me when he was about 17 years of age, after being out all night, that he had slept with Molly Meldrum. He was so proud of this moment.
WWE, Benny Hill, The Three Stooges, Dame Edna were some of the influences on our life, along with great movies. We both loved literature and read endlessly. Each time we watched something or read about it would result in the re-enactment of it in our lounge room. Our parents worked or were often at church so we had a lot of alone time together. We pretended we were a band, sang to entertain each other, always of course being conducted or directed by Leigh. I had to learn how to be bounced around like the WWE wrestlers, grunting and groaning and Leigh would lift me up and throw me back down on the ground. Leigh often loved watching ballet and would adorn stockings from my wardrobe and appear with his large scrotum, and perform a pirouette in our small lounge room resulting in something falling or being broken. We hid the damage. When Leigh had a shower he would emerge dressed in a towel around his waist and would play the piano for hours. It was his form of relaxation. He was brilliant at it. He would write songs, the music and I sometimes was given the task of the lyrics. He always made corrections where he thought needed. With Leigh you didn’t argue about these small things as it would result in a huge drama and performance and so it was to be avoided at all costs. Occasionally it would all be too much and we would have a loud screaming match at each other, similar to that of a fish market, breaking the Salvation Army code and swearing our heads off. There was always an unacknowledged agreement between the two of us, and that was that Leigh needed more space, room, platform or a stage.
Leigh was taught that as the eldest son, it was his job to look out for me, very conservative traditional male stuff, and to protect me. He was taught to carry a clothes peg, for when I had convulsions to pin down my tongue, he was taught to hold my hand and to help me cross the road, he was taught to always take care of me. In one of his diaries that he wrote when he first went to London, he described the pain and anguish at leaving me behind with my parents and how helpless he felt about it.
As we got older we would spend holidays at our family holiday house in the mountains and we would spend all day in the summer swimming in a lake that was 25 metres deep and supposedly had a train at the bottom of it. The Bendigo to Melbourne railway line ran along the east side of the lake and whenever a train would pass we would scream at the top of our lungs. Leigh was two years ahead of me in school and when I began high school he left to attend Melbourne Boys High School. For Leigh it was an exciting and terrifying adventure, for me it meant going to a new school without him. Leigh left for London in October of 1980, one month before I finished High School.
When Leigh went to Melbourne High he started to introduce his new friends to me. After a couple of years he fell in love with one of his friends. Leigh would come home from school and would call up his friend as soon as he got home and they would talk for hours. As soon as our parents arrived he would promptly hang up. Neither parents knew about the relationship, they assumed they were just school friends. I would be dragged into the phone conversations to chat and laugh about stories that the two of them would make up. They both planned to leave together to live in London and that once they arrived in London his lover would call up his parents and say he wasn’t coming home. Both parents never knew that Leigh and his lover flew together to London. Leigh was so excited about this. It made the trip and all he had to leave behind so much more bearable. After a week of being in London his lover couldn’t deal with the guilt of not telling his parents so he left and went home. Leigh was devastated.
Our close communication continued until Leigh died. He would speak to me telling me what was going on, prepping my parents for news he might have to give them, like the death of Trojan, the visit to Australia with Michael Clark and the visit to Australia before our mother died. I would be prepped before our parents travelled to see him, twice whilst in London, and the two worlds Leigh managed continued. He shared his stories of seeing a therapist and of his health. I called and told him about our mother dying. It was one of the most emotional moments hearing the pain in Leigh’s voice and being apart.
Leigh and I experienced so many funny, tough, marked moments. One such moment was our visit to Luna Park. We were both in our teens and really excited to go without our parents. We went on all the rides and at one stage we decided to experience a new ride called the Rotor. The concept of the Rotor was that riders would stand along a wall, and the ride would spin. As the ride was spinning at maximum speed, the floor would drop out from underneath the riders. As the spinning slowed you would slowly slide down the wall and land on the floor. As we screamed with glee, the spinning slowed and I began to slide down the wall. I was wearing dark brown cotton flairs and as I slid the friction of me sticking to the wall pulled against the seams of my pants and with each millimetre I dropped, the seams of my pants opened up, starting from the cuff. By the time I reached the floor I was wearing brown streamer pants, flapping in the wind up to my bottom, with a crowd of people laughing their heads off. As a young teenage girl, I was mortified. Leigh grabbed my hand, raced me out of the back of the ride, and around the back of the park, pushed open a staff entrance door to the park and we snuck out into a side alley, full of parked cars. Leigh, still holding my hand tightly, ran down the road, me with my pants flapping in the wind and raced into a public telephone box. He quickly announced that I would take off my brown flairs and I would put on his jeans. He would wear the brown flairs and roll them up to his bottom. After a quick superman change in the telephone box we emerged, me in Leigh’s jeans, Leigh wearing very brief brown shorts. He strolled down the street with great confidence as only Leigh could.
F: Describe family life in Melbourne?
B: Leigh and I grew up in an outer suburb of Melbourne called Sunshine. The town was named after the Sunshine Harvester that was manufactured by Massey Ferguson. Our grandfather and uncles were engineers at Massey Ferguson. The town was built around the plant dominating the main street. It was an industrial area.
Our parents met as a result of both our grandmothers setting up a date for them. My father was from rural Victoria and he moved to Sunshine when they got married. Our family structure has always felt a little different from the norm. Our maternal grandmother lived with us, our uncle and cousins lived across the road, our mother was born in the street and died in the same street. As a result our mother knew everyone in the town and everyone knew us. Our parents aspired to be like The Sullivans from the 1976 Australian television drama. However the biggest difference between us and The Sullivans was that we didn’t live in an affluent area, but our parents totally believed they did. They didn’t want to appear as working class people, they didn’t vote like working class people. They were conservative, proud Robert Menzies supporters. This always created tension with some our neighbours.
When Leigh was seven years of age he underwent a couple of operations. As he convalesced our grandmother, along with some of her local friends, would sit around a bed made up for Leigh in our living room and taught him knitting, crocheting, tatting and sewing. Leigh absolutely loved being the centre of attention. He loved hearing their stories and gossip about the locals and their tales of being young girls. As Leigh listened his skills in crafts improved until he was eventually better than them, teaching them how to manage intricate patterns. The women were so proud of Leigh and loved how he took an interest in them, which of course they mistook for a young boy just loving being in the centre, front of stage. Our mother was part of this group. I recall her utter shock and exasperation at Leigh leaving the house at the age of 17 wearing a vibrant stripped knitted pants and jumper suit with large white winklepickers. The outfit was made of mohair and was so itchy on Leigh’s skin and his feet were way too large and broad for the shoes. But he strode boldly down our street, with everyone looking out their window, and through the main town to the train station. Our mother was mortified. I can only imagine how our grandmother and mother had not envisaged this as the result of a knitting circle.
Leigh and I entered a world where conformity ruled the day. Added to this interesting cocktail was religion. Our mother, like her mother, attended the Salvation Army Church. Leigh and I both went to Sunday school and were expected to uphold good religious values as well as the churches values, no drinking, smoking, gambling or swearing. Alcohol was never in our house. Our mother never drank a drop of alcohol in her entire life. When Leigh and I were around 9 and 10 years of age, our grandmother suddenly dropped dead of a heart attack in our house in the middle of laughing at the Paul Hogan television show. Our mother was devastated. She turned to religion, taking us along with her. Our father stopped smoking, drinking whisky and adorned a Salvation Army uniform along with our mum. We were also expected to attend church. As Leigh grew older my mother would ask me if Leigh was gay. I told her to go ask him herself. She would and he would just laugh in her face. She, on many occasions, begged him not to go down this pathway as though it was a choice. Whatever Leigh wore reiterated his sexuality and challenged both our parents. When Leigh put on a fashion show in the Melbourne Town hall on his first visit back to Australia, our mother thought it was a fashion show. She invited all her church friends and neighbours for this very proud moment. You could hear the loud gasps of horror and the exiting of women when Leigh exposed a large strapped on penis in the show. Our mother totally lost it with him when he came back home. Yet her son had been gone for years and was only home for a week.
As Leigh developed, he reached his full height of six foot two inches by the time he was eleven years old. Life in our family became more and more tense. Leigh was very brilliant at being able to identify people’s insecurities and their resulting behaviour of conformity. His response was ridicule. During his teenage years I remember he would challenge both our parents, questioning the contradictions in their lives. We had to be seen but not heard, we had to be brilliant but not stand out, we had to be confident but submissive, and we had to be different but conform. On one such occasion Leigh challenged our father. Our father was an avid football viewer, non sporty, accountant managing a furniture store. He was made a Justice of the Peace, a prestigious role that he relished. Our parents loved us immensely but it was pretty conditional. Leigh decided that our father was a fraud in the way he behaved and how he was actually just a weak person. Our father was five foot seven inches and so Leigh towered over him. Leigh was also a great swimmer so he was very broad across the shoulders as well. The perfect footballer in our fathers eyes, but alas that never materialised. In the heat of a row in our family kitchen, my father grabbed for his thin fibre glass stick that he kept along the window sill next to his seat at the head of the table. He approached Leigh with the stick raised. Leigh stood tall, looked him straight in the eye and asked him if this was going to made him feel powerful, beating his son. Leigh continued, whilst my father hit him, by asking him if this was making him feel good, did this help. Leigh also decided when were we early teenagers that it was no longer appropriate for us to call our parents mum and dad and so they both became Tom and Ev. As Leigh towered over our father he repeatedly said, “are you feeling better now Tom, now that you have hit me.” His tone was facetious and enraged our father. Our mother was screaming in the background, “Stop it Tom, he’s only a boy.” Leigh and I later laughed about how he totally screwed with our father’s mind. This confrontation did not occur only once.
Our mother instilled into both Leigh and I the importance of generosity and hospitality. People who met Leigh always commented on how generous and caring he was. Our mother taught us to cook and to serve people when they came over to our home, which was often. Our father was very principled as well. The most unusual aspect of our family was that there were many moments of great laughter and utter joy, moments when our parents were not fearful of conformity or what people thought. Our mother loved spending time with Leigh creating things. She helped him with every outfit he made but then would be horrified when he walked past the neighbours in it. Our mother also took up cake decorating after our grandmother died. Leigh would sit and make delicate intricate lace work with her until late into the night getting a cake made for who ever had ordered it. They enjoyed working on finely detailed designs together.
Leigh loved cats. We grew up with cats, had many over the years. Leigh had a couple of cats whilst in London. He taught them how do pulls ups on the door frame and how to walk along the balcony edge several floors above the ground. Having a cat was a connection to family for Leigh.
F: I remember you mentioned you went to London to visit Leigh and spent time with Trojan, what was that like for you?
B: In 1984, I went to London for a few months to be with Leigh. By this time he was living in Farrell House. I hired a car and became Leigh’s personal chauffeur. Travelling overseas for the first time was an enormous adventure, experiencing Leigh’s life was like entering a new galaxy. It was colourful, exciting and non stop. When we were alone it was very special. I met Trojan on this trip and absolutely loved him. He was always experiencing a drama and he constantly made me laugh. He was gentle and such a beautiful person who adored Leigh and Leigh adored him. Trojan looked out for me as I traversed this new world.
F: How do you think Leigh would feel about the collector value of his work or perhaps even – fame?
B: Leigh loved a stage and creating not fame. I think we sometimes confuse these two things. It is impossible to imagine what Leigh would think about the value of his work, but I imagine he would be proud of what he has achieved, as he would often tell me. Leigh didn’t value stuff, he valued art and music. He has commented many times that he didn’t want to create fashion collections for everyone, it was about him and how he could magically transform himself whilst pushing new perspectives. He was continuously moving forward.
F: Do you feel Leigh was at the forefront of transitioning fashion into more of a conceptual art from?
B: Fashion infers a popular or latest style. Leigh didn’t create the latest style, he created a character. He used his body to transform what we expected into something unexpected. He wanted people to be surprised, even shocked and moved by what they saw. He also wanted to stretch himself to come up with something that was completely new.
F: What was Leigh’s relationship with the LGBTQI community?
B: Relationship infers that he was part of the LGBTQI community. Everyone was in Leigh’s community. He didn’t care who you were or what you represented. He was open and non judgemental.
F: How do you feel about his influence on culture and where do you see it relevant today?
B: Leigh influenced me, he influenced everyone who met him. That was his aim and he loved the power it gave him. If you have an intention to influence and disrupt people’s perceptions then this has a very long lasting effect, possibly forever.
F: You mentioned Lucian Freud has given you an etching of Leigh, how did that come about?
B: When we arrived in London for Xmas in 1994 Leigh had the etching by Lucian hanging in his kitchen. Very Leigh. He told me that he wanted me to take it back to Australia. The etching has ‘of L for L’ on it.
F: Malcom McLaren gave a wonderful talk at the handheld learning conference, London in 2009 where he talks about the ‘messy process of creativity’. What do you feel the key is to Leigh’s authenticity?
B: Malcolm McLaren talked about an artist as “trying to authenticate a karaoke culture”, and to do this you “have to be an alchemist or a magician to make that happen and those people are rare.” That is Leigh. When he was a small child he announced at the dinner table one day that he wanted to be a magician. Leigh created magic and he was rare. I do think of him as an alchemist, concocting something new that would blow our minds. I think this is what made Leigh authentic as well as being very human. It was his ability to balance these two elements together.
F: How is Leigh’s body of work archived today and why do you feel an archive is important?
B: Nicola has beautifully archived all of Leigh’s work. She takes great pride in doing this. As an influencer, Leigh’s work inspires people. It is also beautiful for my own sons to see their uncle creations.
F: You mentioned you are working with an Australian institution to catalogue more about Leigh, how has this process been for you?
B: It has been amazing to see the researcher bring together a biography of Leigh’s work. He achieved so much in such a short period of time. It is also great that he is being acknowledged in Australia. It kind of feels ironic. There is also a theatre in Melbourne named after Leigh. The Bowery Theatre!
F: Would you consider Leigh an Australian icon?
B: Is Leigh a representative symbol, worthy of veneration? Absolutely, but I am most biased. I am so proud of what Leigh achieved, the courage that it took him as I know how difficult it was at times. For Leigh creating was greater. He loved the adrenalin rush of coming up with something new and actually making it happen. He didn’t do this because of fame or how people thought of him, he did this because it was an uncontrollable force within him.
–
Thank you Bronwyn Bowery-Ireland for your words.
Interview by John Saint Michel conducted August 2022.
Image credits:
1. The Metropolitan (c. 1988). Predrag Cancar/National Gallery of Victoria
2. Lucian Freud’s etching of Leigh. Image of etching: Courtesy of Bronwyn Bowery-Ireland
3. All other images: Courtesy of Bronwyn Bowery-Ireland
what a very touching personal story about Leigh, thank you!