There is never more than a fag paper between them – Dominic and Andy

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, 100 Parliament Street

Two young men sit together on a sofa. There is a sense of intimacy in their body language, in their eye contact, and in the hand of one placed casually on the bare thigh of the other. Drawn in by their palpable chemistry, the viewer's eye goes simultaneously to the slightly crumpled grid-like surface the artist has worked on. The title gives us a clue as to the material – fag paper. Colloquially, 'fag' is a term used to describe a cigarette, but it is also a homophobic slur. 

A remark made by a teenager, and overheard by the artist James Robert Morrison, to describe a gay couple as ‘never having more than a fag paper between them', took Morrison back to his own teenage years when, he recalls, ‘there were no “out” and “proud” public figures... and school was an exclusively heteronormative environment’. Section 28, a Local Government Act prohibiting the promotion of homosexuality in the UK, meant that being queer was then actively discriminated against (the Act was repealed in 2003). A teenage Morrison found that, at that time, gay pornographic magazines were the only place he could see representations of intimacy between men. In 2019 Morrison began exploring his journey to discovering and valuing his sexuality, through a series of skilfully drawn compositions, on the challenging medium of a grid of cigarette papers. His drawings reference the images he once viewed in these magazines, highlighting the importance of queer visibility.

James Robert Morrison graduated with an MFA from Central St Martins in 2002. He worked in the gallery and museums sector till 2019 before returning to a regular art practice in London. Since then he has been shortlisted for the Derwent Art Prize (2022); has won the Mervyn Metcalf Purchase Prize at the ING Discerning Eye Exhibition (2021); been selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (2021) and was awarded a special commendation at the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize (2020). His work has also been shown in exhibitions at Southwark Park Galleries, London (2019, 2020 & 2022); Bermondsey Project Space; Mall Galleries; Blue Shop Cottage Art Gallery; No Format Gallery; and Space Station Sixty-Five, all London (2022).

Places

Subjects

man

Materials & Techniques

paper (as artists material), pencil, graphite pencil, drawing (Art object type), pencil drawing, cigarette paper

Artist

James Robert Morrison (1979 - )

Title

There is never more than a fag paper between them – Dominic and Andy

Date

2021

Medium

pencil on fag (cigarette) papers

Dimensions

height: 27.0 cm; width: 40.4 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from the artist, December 2021

Provenance

The artist; from whom purchased by UK Government Art Collection, 9 December 2021

GAC number

19028