Terrence Higgins Trust - 2023, Timed Auction

James Robert Morrison graduated with an MA Fine Art from Central Saint Martins. He has been shortlisted for the Derwent Art Prize (2022), selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (2021) and won the Mervyn Metcalf Purchase Prize at the ING Discerning Eye Exhibition (2021). His work is held in the UK Government Art Collection and private collections in the UK, USA and China. 

The artist overheard a teenager describing a gay couple as ‘never having more than a fag paper between them’. Morrison says: “In my teenage years, I didn’t know anyone gay, there were no ‘out and proud’ public figures and school was an exclusively heteronormative environment due to Section 28. The only gay couples I had to look up to were to be found in my collection of gay porn magazines”. 

Inspired by this and the play on words, James has created a series of drawings portraying couples from his personal archive of gay porn magazines on the unique and challenging medium: fag (cigarette) papers. Phil and Jacob is the first drawing created from the series. It was shortlisted for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize in 2020 and was awarded a special commendation.