Iconic Sydney photographer C.Moore Hardy’s grand exhibition

Iconic Sydney photographer C.Moore Hardy’s grand exhibition
Image: An iconic photo by C.Moore Hardy. Supplied.

C.MOORE Hardy has captured some of the most iconic moments of Sydney’s queer scene for the past 35 years.

Now she has brought together her favourite photographs to show in a grand exhibition.

Hardy’s exhibition Sydney, Sex & Subculture (historical, hysterical, & happy recollections of the queer community) is not only a culmination of almost four decades of documenting the local LGBTI culture but a way for Hardy to leave behind her legacy.

Selecting photos from the many thousands in her archive was a mammoth project and it took the artist a year-and-a-half to narrow down which would make the cut.

“I’ve got a slide projection on a monitor and that’s got over a thousand images on that. So there’s going to be a lot of colour and movement on that,” she told Star Observer.

“The images that I’ve chosen to actually print, there’s only about 60 of them. It took 18 months, but I managed it,” she said.

Star Observer: Issue 1, page 1 (Cover photo: C.Moore; Source: Star Observer Archives)
The first ever edition of the Star Observer features a photo taken by C.Moore Hardy. Source: Star Observer Archives

So, after decades documenting the community she decided it was time to put on a massive exhibition.

“It was a case of, ‘I really have to put it all away, I have to move forward’, I’m doing more paintings, more artworks,” Hardy said.

“I’ve got a really amazing garden which I love working on. Someone has suggested I should do a book on my garden and flowers. That’s in the pipeline as well.

“There’s just so many other things I want to do rather than just keeping going back over that work. It’s a letting go process and moving forward.”

C.Moore Hardy, a long- time photographic documenter of the gay and lesbian community, is this month’s Community Hero. (PHOTO: Viv McGregor)
C.Moore Hardy. (PHOTO: Viv McGregor)

Hardy isn’t sad to be leaving the work behind her because “it’s always going to be there” and believes people of all ages and background should visit her show.

“I think there’s a whole generation that doesn’t know about the past, they would be interested I’m sure,” she said.

“It’s a broad spectrum kind of an exhibition really… the community has changed so much.”

Sydney, Sex & Subculture (historical, hysterical, & happy recollections of the queer community) opens on February 20 until March at the Brenda May Gallery, 2 Danks Street Waterloo.

Hardy’s exhibition will appear alongside Todd Fuller’s Insubstantial Love Stories which explores themes of gay love and rights and Lorraine Guddemi’s Raspirical Things exploring female desirability.

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