The lives and queer identities of Georgian artists have, at times, required recovery. Mary E. Hutchinson, an Atlanta-born painter and portraitist, did not maintain a highly visible public profile during her career, but correspondence in the Mary E. Hutchinson and Dorothy King papers housed at Emory University reveal intimate partnerships with women, several of whom were her preferred subjects for sensual portraiture. Although Eddie Owens Martin, who exhibited under the name “St. EOM,” became increasingly secluded within his psychedelic compound Pasaquan near Buena Vista during his later years, he was well-known locally as an eccentric, spiritual artist, a male prostitute in his youth, as well as a painter and fortune-teller in the last forty years of his life. Becki Jayne Harrelson has engaged with spirituality in her art as well, combining orthodox Christian imagery and queer theology; her provocative painting “The Crucifixion of Christ” stages Jesus beneath a note reading an anti-gay slur to point to religious justifications for violence and hatred. LGBTQ+ artists in Georgia have gained recognition across other mediums as well, including sculpture (W. Chester Old), comic illustration (Joe Phillips), photography and mixed media (Alli Royce Soble); Anthony Goicolea; and more.

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