Heart of the Nation: Newcastle 2300

Gerwyn Davies has a unique schtick as an artist: he wrangles gaudy materials into fantastic sculptural costumes then photographs himself in situ. What do bystanders make of it?

Whimsical: Gerwyn Davies at Newcastle Ocean Baths

It all started when Gerwyn Davies was a student at the Queensland College of Art in Brisbane. He lived in a share house with three mates, and for fun they would do dress-ups, modelling outlandish costumes they’d created and photographing each other. “We’d be drinking cask wine, having a lot of laughs, and we always ended up with an image we enjoyed,” he says. Fast-forward 15 years and he’s still at it, though these days it’s an entirely solitary pursuit, and one he has ­parlayed into a career as a photographic artist.

Davies has a magpie eye for ­garish raw ­materials – as well as trawling dollar stores for mass-produced shiny/colourful/sparkly things he’s a regular at Spotlight, “where I go to the dance section and battle 10-year-old girls for the chintziest fabric,” he deadpans. He wrangles these materials into fantastic ­sculptural ­costumes on a mannequin – then carefully picks a location, sets up his camera on a tripod to shoot continuously and shuffles into frame wearing the costume, performing various poses. His face is never revealed; only his ­lavishly tattooed limbs speak to the viewer of the person beneath it all. In this shot from the Josephine Ulrick & Win Schubert Photography Awards he’s pictured at the Newcastle Ocean Baths wearing a concoction of pink pool noodles. There were plenty of people around but no one batted an eyelid, he says. “People assume I’m just taking selfies and ignore me.”

It’s fun and experimental and a bit bonkers (have a look at the works on his website, ­gerwyndavies.com, they’re a hoot) but there’s meaning behind it, too. “People expect a ­photographic portrait to reveal something about the subject, and I like to toy with that ... it’s about queer misdirection: I’m inviting ­attention but then controlling how it goes,” says ­Davies, who lectures at the UNSW School of Art & Design and is represented by galleries in Sydney, Brisbane and Berlin.

As for his three housemates from those ­student days? “One is now director of medicine at a hospital, one’s a lawyer and the other is a psychologist,” Davies says, adding with a self-deprecating laugh: “And I’m an adult clown.”