Photographer: Mark Morrisroe

Queer, gay, cross-dresser, rebel, punk rocker, drag queen, artist and legend: Mark Morrisroe (1959-1989) was born to a drug-addicted mother, left home at 13, became a prostitute and was shot by a client at the age of 16 (he survived but was left partially paralyzed). Against all odds he fought his way to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and graduated with honors.

Morrisroe was a performance artist and photographer. He is known for his performances and photographs, which were germane in the development of the punk scene in Boston in the 1970s and the art world boom of the mid to late 1980s in New York City.

He became a photographer, film maker and a performance artist. Morrisroe was diagnosed HIV+ in 1986. While forced to stay in hospital during his illness he transformed his bathroom into a darkroom in order to continue working. He was creating art right up until he died in his hospital bed on July, 1989 from AIDS-related complications. He was 30 years old.

“Mark was an outlaw on every front—sexually, socially, and artistically. He developed into a photographer with a completely distinctive artistic vision and signature. Both his pictures of his lovers, close friends, and objects of desire, and his touching still-lifes of rooms, dead flowers, and dream images stand as timeless fragments of his life, resonating with sexual longing, loneliness, and loss.” - Nan Goldin, 1993