Friends of Dorothy
This five-piece series is titled, “Friends of Dorothy”, and was painted in 2015 using acrylics on canvas. These brightly coloured, stylized paintings are portraits of the friends and lovers of the artist, don trupp, lost to HIV/AIDS between 1987 and 2001. With each portrait, don trupp endeavoured to capture the ‘spark’ that made the lives of these men- his friends and his lovers, momentous and unique.
The Pre-Summit Event, “An Open Intergenerational Dialogue on HIV History” presented by the “HIV In My Day” research team inspired the curation of don trupp’s five-piece portrait collection.
“I remember the panic and terror we felt within the gay community during the early 1980s before science had identified the mysterious disease affecting and killing gay men. By 2001, all my friends and past lovers had died from HIV/AIDS; I still, to this day, do not know how I escaped. The stigma, judgment, and discrimination I witnessed and experienced first-hand from the doctors, hospital staff, nurses and the public at large were debilitating. While HIV/AIDS research, awareness, and education continue to improve on a societal level, inequality is still prominent and widespread in our healthcare system today.” (don trupp, September 2021)
The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically changed how much of our society and our healthcare system now operates, and these changes seem to be somewhat permanent. don trupp’s portrait collection speaks to the theme of Summit 2021: Disrupt and Reconstruct as art is often disruptive.
“Art can make you rethink your understanding of society by highlighting previously hidden inequalities. Art communicates; it can tell an objective story. When created with an objective purpose (a political message), art can become a vehicle for societal change paving a blank slate on which societal norms can be reconstructed. Inequality and discrimination within our healthcare system were all too alive and well during my friends’ battles with HIV/AIDS. Being given this opportunity to have my portrait series included in the disrupting and reconstructing of our healthcare system, helping to shatter the intolerance, prejudice, and inequity we experience within the GBT2Q community, is an honour.” (don trupp, September 2021).
don trupp
don trupp was born on July 5th, 1953, in Stonewall, Manitoba. It was at the young age of five when don began his love affair with art. In 1972, don graduated from the Commercial Art Program at Victoria Composite High School in Edmonton, Alberta. The Yukon Territories is where don trupp established himself as an Artist, using acrylics on canvas, pen & ink, and watercolours.
don trupp exhibited his works in seven solo art shows and three group gallery exhibitions between 1979 and 1983. Three of don’s solo exhibitions sold out, with his first selling out in ninety minutes. don trupp’s artworks are held in private collections across Canada, the US, Scotland, Germany, and Japan.
don trupp was unconventional to say the least; as an openly gay man, don refused to conform to the societal conventions of marriage and parenthood. don married Teri Arcovio, his partner-in-life in November of 1980, and fathered two children, Cerise Dio-enne on April 14th, 1984, and Jon-Selby Zachariah on November 24th, 1986.
don moved to Nelson, British Columbia in 2017. He truly believed that “the Kootenays facilitate[d] the quirkiness of [his] eccentricities” and presented him with the opportunity to experiment with 2D and 3D mixed media paintings that explored his struggle to find a ‘happy medium’ to which he could fit his identity into. don trupp died unexpectedly on October 5th, 2021, in his home from a heart attack.