Candy Darling

Candy, almost always accompanied by Warhol, attended a lot of very wealthy dinner parties in the fabled back room of Max’s Kansas City and was really the first person to implant the drag queen into pop culture. She was part of the first wave of transsexuals to take hormones, and her arresting look set the stage, in the ’70s, for performers like Divine.

Darling was immortalized in music, most notably by Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground in the rock classics ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ and 'Candy Says.'

I've always been greatly influenced and inspired by Warhol. "Candy Darling" is the one in a series of six portraits of Warhol's Factory Superstars. I begin by making several drawings of each subject based on various historical references. These drawings are torn and cut apart into pieces so that I can "audition" them until they make a portrait of the subject.