By arts editor Helen Musa

It was all glitz and glamour at the National Portrait Gallery on Friday morning when drag performer Courtney Act made a show-biz style entrance for the unveiling of her newly-commissioned portrait, created from thousands of found objects by Australian artist Paul Yore.

The mosaic-like almost three-dimensional assemblage, unveiled yesterday, celebrates the career of Shane Jenek, the Queensland-born, Sydney-based performer who has helped bring drag into the mainstream over more than two decades.

Beads, pearls, shells, Barbie dolls, hair and make-up accessories, sunglasses, stilettos, a XXXX can and a Sherrin football are among the many objects incorporated into the work, although Act was quick to point out that she’d never played the game.

National Portrait Gallery director Bree Pickering said the portrait celebrated a performer whose influence had reached around the world, describing it as “a monument to queer culture.”

Jenek created the persona of Courtney Act after moving to Sydney at 18 and becoming involved in the city’s gay and drag scene. Courtney gained national attention as a finalist on Australian Idol in 2003, becoming the first openly gay and gender-diverse contestant across the global Idol franchises. She later appeared on RuPaul’s Drag Race and won the UK’s Celebrity Big Brother.

Yore, who is known for using discarded materials in collage, tapestry and large-scale installations, said the challenge had been to create a recognisable likeness while retaining his own artistic style. The result, he said, sits somewhere between image and sculpture, fantasy and reality.

As for the glamorous Act, on playing surprised as she turned around for the staged reveal, asked, “Are you sure it has to stay here? Can’t I take it home?”

Courtney Act, by Paul Yore, National Portrait Gallery, on show to the public from October 24.

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