Virginia’s RoomPaul Petro Contemporary Art
June 7 to July 6, 2019 
Will Munro and I spent the summer of 2003 crafting costumes and a set for an interactive performance - The Wall of Virginia Puff-Paint - that we presented at Zsa Zsa Gallery, on Queen Street West, in September of that year.

So much of the project was informed by queer erasure, and sought to forge connections to departed forebears, which now also include Will. It has been personally meaningful to unpack Virginia's effects so many years later, and, as collaborator originally, now custodian and solo artist, to refigure the installation in the context of his absence. It feels fitting that a project centred around reveling in and revealing queer legacies should now come back around to remind us of Will's own.

Please join me in Virginia's Room.

—Jeremy Laing

The lady was a tramp. Not that Virginia was much of a lady, mind you. Anyway, she started life on Queen St. West West – a grittier time before they added the second “West”, and definitely a grittier time before they dropped it again. Before Jeff Stober opened his kingdom at the Drake, and before Christina Zeidler opened her queendom at the Gladstone. A time before Ossington was Williamsburg North and before selfies were a thing, if you know what I mean.

Back in 2003, Virginia went looking for a suitable abode to flaunt her questionable peccadilloes and, as luck would have it, she met Andrew Harwood. The goddess works in mysterious ways! Along with Keith Cole and Richard Vaughan, Andrew was one of Three Evil Queens you’d see casting their spells at Vazaleen. Naturally, I mean “Evil” in the best possible sense. Andrew once fucked a watermelon onstage at Lee’s Palace, if that’s any indication. Anyway, Virginia met Andrew, and it turned out he was running a gallery called Zsa Zsa across the street from CAMH. Virginia was duly impressed.

Dominant artiste that she is, Virginia immediately put her minions Jeremy and Will to work, and that summer the boys were elbow-deep in glitter. You know the adage that glitter is the herpes of the craft-world? The way you’ll find glitter on your couch, glitter in your bathtub, glitter in your butt-crack for weeks after a heavy session? Well, the boys had a bad case of it.
Everything had to be perfect. Each rhinestone in place, each orifice gloriously pearled, each protrusion marvellously sheathed in lace. Virginia Puff-Paint looked approvingly at her creation. She was building an empire – a pleasure-dome of earthly delights. First was the Wall of Virginia Puff-Paint at Zsa Zsa in September 2003. Then came the Pavilion of Virginia Puff-Paint at AGYU in 2004. The flesh is weak, but the spirit lives on.

As you enter the Room of Virginia Puff-Paint, feel the way her sissy-ness overwhelms your masc4masc sensibilities (if you have any). Savour the way she consensually and delicately dilates your psyche, as you make yourself comfortable in her boudoir – you, who’ve found this sacred space. Drink it in. Avail yourself of her energies.

They say an army of lovers will never be defeated, and this much of what I tell you is true. Drink it all in. You’re gonna need your strength and your magic powers for the battles unfolding around us.

—Luis Jacob
Images by LF Documentation.