drew away. At least it kept me quiet."
It was also an early expression of Gary's creative leanings. After he
left school these found an outlet
in his employment as, among other things, a florist and cake decorator,
for which he won awards. However, as long as Gary has been an adult -
he's 38 - HIV has figured in his consciousness and experience.
When I ask him about the part HIV has played in his evolution as an artist,
he seemed a little thrown, as if the question was just too obvious to
require explanation. After a moment or two's hesitation he replied: "I
don't think I've got a friend who isn't HIV positive. It's just always
there."
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Rather than try and explain, he takes out his portfolio. He instantly
refers me to a drawing of a young man's face, painted in livid, putrefying
colours, with an expression fixed in a scream of anguish and pain. "That's
a friend," says Gary. "He was HIV positive" and had "a
number of other problems" (he adds this clearly indicating that he's
not going to explain what these are). "I found the body and that's
how I remember him. In pain. Screaming." He goes on to add: "Death,
pain, genocide, suffering, war. That's how I see HIV. When I was nursing
my dying partner, his emaciated body reminded me of the people in Nazi
death camps, or people during the recent Somalian famine."
There are other key factors in Gary's work. "Loss has been a
major experience of my life. My mum died when I was 15, my dad when I was 18, and my partner in 1999, so I used my drawings and paintings to try
