The Royal Drag - performance, 1981

On July 29th 1981, the same day as Prince Charles and Lady Diana, performer Topo Grajeda and I were married. He dressed as Diana and I as Charles, with all the guests also cross-dressed (the Queen Mum sporting an enormous hairy back and a hat made from Pizza boxes). The preacher, thinking we were both men, at first refused to conduct the ceremony. The cake was by Sur Rodney (Sur), most photographs are by Timothy Greathouse, and the event was featured on Channel-7 tv-news.

Topo Grajeda & Jimini Hignett outside St.Marks church on 8th Street.













Prince Charles discusses the ceremony with the preacher.

PAINTING

I came to painting via the theatre. Then, oddly enough, it took quite a while before I realised that my art work didn’t necessarily have to be a painting but could encompass other things. Seems so obvious now, but it was a revelation at the time!

Then the question of course arose – When does it have to be a painting? The answer, it seems is – almost never. So I do still paint occasionally.

What interested me with my series of naked figures was disturbing the conventions and expectations that adhere specifically to the painted nude.














(Aged 9 to 14, I went through life as a boy, consequently, when I 'became a girl again' gender-oriented behaviour was not something I took for granted, and my work sometimes deals with an under-mining of established gender-related assumptions.)

See more paintings by Jimini Hignett on www.HowToGoOn.com