History is a drag

SMH.com.au – Louise Schwartzkoff

The bloke in the peaked police cap seems the sort you would expect to see atop a Mardi Gras float, stroking his moustache and flashing his smooth chest.

Look closer and you notice the soft lips beneath his moustache and the strange, rounded shape of his pectorals. This figure of buff masculinity is, in fact, a woman. A portrait of the drag king Rocco D’Amore, it is one of several images created by the artist Scott Elk to illustrate the theme of this year’s Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras: the history of the world.