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Lot Essay
Steven Shearer’s Drag II is a paradigmatic exemplar of the artist’s painterly praxis. Shearer explores the history of painting through the interface of contemporary society’s visual fixation in an era of infinite digital images. Mining the digital detritus of heavy metal, hard rock, and other subcultures, Shearer emphasizes the reverberations present between the present and the past. “I see the contemporary images that I reference as an extension of all historical images,” the artist describes. “I’m interested in making things that explore how we remember and idealize each other. Today’s images are echoes of how people have always been depicted, throughout history” (S. Shearer, quoted in V. Nicholas, “Interview with Steven Shearer,” The White Review, July 2011, online, accessed 24 October 2025).
Drag II finds its source in a striking photograph of Quorthon, born Thomas Börje Forsberg, a Swedish black metal and rock musician and frontman of the legendary band Bathory, in profile, dragging on a cigarette. Drag II exemplifies Shearer’s most significant subjects, who are evocatively described by the critic Chloe Stead: “his protagonists stare pleadingly out at the viewer or hide from their gaze under veils of lank hair, shoulders hunched, cigarette in mouth. Rendered with luminous blue-, yellow- and green-tinged skin, these men—visually coded as artist and musician types through their personal style and twilight activities—are clearly in need of some quality shut-eye” (C. Stead, “Steven Shearer Looks Beyond the Veil,” Freize, 19 January 2024, online, accessed 24 October 2025).
The insomniac interlopers within Shearer’s parallel his own obsessive artistic process. Over the decades, he has meticulously assembled an archive of images organized within an idiosyncratic taxonomy. Numbering more than 74,000 images, Shearer’s archives have become a contemporary, digitized version of the early twentieth-century art historian Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Altas, mapping the many pathways in which images animate society. Shearer notes how “the material I collect is motivated more by my subjective response to it than by the personal narratives behind the various photographs and clippings I collect. I am interested in how found imagery can transcend itself and reflect something that I relate to” (S. Shearer, quoted in “Steven Shearer Q&A: Venice Biennale,” Tate ETC., no. 22, Summer 2011, online, accessed 24 October 2025).
Drag II’s source photograph can be traced back to the artist’s Puffs, compiled the year prior. This source has become one of the most recognizable motifs in Shearer’s oeuvre, appearing in paintings such as The Convalescent (2006) and Night Train (2009-2010), as well as his oil and crayon study Hash Study III (2007-2011). Shearer’s use of appropriated imagery as repeated motifs throughout his practice recalls the studio practices of Renaissance painters, where figures and postures taken from antique sculptures or previous painters would become a site of mimesis, each artist reinterpreting the form into their own unique style. The resultant image subsumes the original: “what I like about painting is that it potentially transcends the subject matter of the reference material” (S. Shearer, quoted in “Figures and Faces: The Phrenological Time Machines of Steven Shearer,” Border Crossings, January 2022, online, accessed 24 October 2025).
The androgynous aspect of the figure in Drag II similarly looks to the historical tradition. Shearer explains: “I naturally gravitate towards androgyny because it reflects the freeing, fluid spirit of creativity that propels me forward. And really, when you think about artists like Gustave Moreau or Da Vinci, their idealized male figures also exist within a still point between the genders. In part, the long hair is a nice way for my hand to enter into the pictures, it’s a line; but it also creates this equilibrium. My subjects are male, but they don’t feel exclusively male” (V. Nicholas, op. cit.). Shearer’s long-haired figures, which pervade his practice, reflect a freed, fluid spirit of creativity epitomizing the liberated subcultures which he interrogates in paint.
Drag II encapsulates Steven Shearer’s singular ability to transform found imagery into painterly myth. Its subject, drawn from the margins of subculture, is rendered with the gravitas of the art historical lineage, inviting reflection on the fluidity of identity and the persistence of form. In its quiet power and chromatic fluidity, the painting offers not only a compelling visual experience but also a rare opportunity to engage with a practice that bridges archival rigor and expressive freedom. Rewarding sustained looking, Drag II stands as a luminous node in Shearer’s evolving visual lexicon.
Offered from the collection of Bruce Bailey, one of Canada’s most respected art patrons, Drag II (as well as Kerry James Marshall’s Portrait of John Punch) is being sold to benefit The Bailey Arts Foundation, an organization devoted to advancing the visual arts in Canada. For decades, Bailey has been a passionate collector and champion of artists, forging close friendships with both Kerry James Marshall and Steven Shearer from the early days of their careers. His foundation continues this spirit of support and engagement, investing significantly in institutions such as the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and creating opportunities for emerging artists through its innovative “artist-sponsored” gala initiative, in which patrons donate their tables to practicing artists, allowing them to network and connect with leading collectors from across North America. The sale of this work extends Bailey’s lifelong commitment to cultivating a vibrant and inclusive cultural landscape.
Drag II finds its source in a striking photograph of Quorthon, born Thomas Börje Forsberg, a Swedish black metal and rock musician and frontman of the legendary band Bathory, in profile, dragging on a cigarette. Drag II exemplifies Shearer’s most significant subjects, who are evocatively described by the critic Chloe Stead: “his protagonists stare pleadingly out at the viewer or hide from their gaze under veils of lank hair, shoulders hunched, cigarette in mouth. Rendered with luminous blue-, yellow- and green-tinged skin, these men—visually coded as artist and musician types through their personal style and twilight activities—are clearly in need of some quality shut-eye” (C. Stead, “Steven Shearer Looks Beyond the Veil,” Freize, 19 January 2024, online, accessed 24 October 2025).
The insomniac interlopers within Shearer’s parallel his own obsessive artistic process. Over the decades, he has meticulously assembled an archive of images organized within an idiosyncratic taxonomy. Numbering more than 74,000 images, Shearer’s archives have become a contemporary, digitized version of the early twentieth-century art historian Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Altas, mapping the many pathways in which images animate society. Shearer notes how “the material I collect is motivated more by my subjective response to it than by the personal narratives behind the various photographs and clippings I collect. I am interested in how found imagery can transcend itself and reflect something that I relate to” (S. Shearer, quoted in “Steven Shearer Q&A: Venice Biennale,” Tate ETC., no. 22, Summer 2011, online, accessed 24 October 2025).
Drag II’s source photograph can be traced back to the artist’s Puffs, compiled the year prior. This source has become one of the most recognizable motifs in Shearer’s oeuvre, appearing in paintings such as The Convalescent (2006) and Night Train (2009-2010), as well as his oil and crayon study Hash Study III (2007-2011). Shearer’s use of appropriated imagery as repeated motifs throughout his practice recalls the studio practices of Renaissance painters, where figures and postures taken from antique sculptures or previous painters would become a site of mimesis, each artist reinterpreting the form into their own unique style. The resultant image subsumes the original: “what I like about painting is that it potentially transcends the subject matter of the reference material” (S. Shearer, quoted in “Figures and Faces: The Phrenological Time Machines of Steven Shearer,” Border Crossings, January 2022, online, accessed 24 October 2025).
The androgynous aspect of the figure in Drag II similarly looks to the historical tradition. Shearer explains: “I naturally gravitate towards androgyny because it reflects the freeing, fluid spirit of creativity that propels me forward. And really, when you think about artists like Gustave Moreau or Da Vinci, their idealized male figures also exist within a still point between the genders. In part, the long hair is a nice way for my hand to enter into the pictures, it’s a line; but it also creates this equilibrium. My subjects are male, but they don’t feel exclusively male” (V. Nicholas, op. cit.). Shearer’s long-haired figures, which pervade his practice, reflect a freed, fluid spirit of creativity epitomizing the liberated subcultures which he interrogates in paint.
Drag II encapsulates Steven Shearer’s singular ability to transform found imagery into painterly myth. Its subject, drawn from the margins of subculture, is rendered with the gravitas of the art historical lineage, inviting reflection on the fluidity of identity and the persistence of form. In its quiet power and chromatic fluidity, the painting offers not only a compelling visual experience but also a rare opportunity to engage with a practice that bridges archival rigor and expressive freedom. Rewarding sustained looking, Drag II stands as a luminous node in Shearer’s evolving visual lexicon.
Offered from the collection of Bruce Bailey, one of Canada’s most respected art patrons, Drag II (as well as Kerry James Marshall’s Portrait of John Punch) is being sold to benefit The Bailey Arts Foundation, an organization devoted to advancing the visual arts in Canada. For decades, Bailey has been a passionate collector and champion of artists, forging close friendships with both Kerry James Marshall and Steven Shearer from the early days of their careers. His foundation continues this spirit of support and engagement, investing significantly in institutions such as the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and creating opportunities for emerging artists through its innovative “artist-sponsored” gala initiative, in which patrons donate their tables to practicing artists, allowing them to network and connect with leading collectors from across North America. The sale of this work extends Bailey’s lifelong commitment to cultivating a vibrant and inclusive cultural landscape.