A HollyWood Tail, 2025
Backstage, 2025
Birds of a Feather, 2025
Bikini Kills, 2025
Friend of Jack, 2024
Photos and Club Posters from the Faulkner Morgan Archive
Face Painting, 2025
Owner of the Archive (Stand in Board)
Santas Lap, 2025
Protein Ladies, 2025
Birds of a Feather features a new body of work that Chiaverini made in response to the legacy of Lexington’s queer past and its vibrant present. The hand-made costumes, watercolor paintings, and soft sculptures are inspired by photographs and ephemera the artist found in the Faulkner Morgan Archive (FMA), particularly images from pride festivals, parade floats, and holiday celebrations. The mermaid tail costumes, for instance, reference photographs from the 1980s featuring drag queens at the KET Sybarite Ball dressed in similarly themed garb. The original images, along with other archival selections from the FMA, are on view in the adjacent gallery.
For Chiaverini, mermaids function as a powerful metaphor for marginalized identities: neither fully human nor fully fish, they embody an in-betweenness that exists outside of rigid societal categories. He actively encourages visitors to try on his costumes -- an invitation to enter into a more imaginative world of performativity where transformation is both possible and necessary. In his own words: "I turn costumes into portals ... Whether using feathers, fiber, glitter, or trash, I build queer environments out of what’s left behind. These pieces are not fixed but always in a state of rehearsal, of becoming. I don’t aim to perfect—I aim to play, to dream, and to dress a body that hasn't arrived yet but is on its way."
Photos By - Keelan O'Sullivan
