British photographer Magnus Hastings is launching a new exhibition,”Why Drag?”, featuring mesmerizing portraits of Drag Race royalty like Bianca Del Rio, Courtney Act, Adore Delano, Jinkx Monsoon, Sharon Needles, Alaska, Willam and Detox—plus more queens from around the country.

“Drag is the creative love of my life,” says Hastings. “I view it as both a magical fantasy world and as an art form. In art, you can have a Picasso or a Matisse. You can also have a painting of velvet dogs playing poker. I like to think that my show is presenting a room full of Picassos.”

Now based in L.A., Hastings was was drawn to drag as a child in England, raiding his mother’s closet and parading down the street wearing only an ostrich-feather fan and a pair of his sister’s silver clogs. It wasn’t until a decade ago that he came back to the artform when he encountered his eventual muse, Australian drag star Vanity Faire. “I thought I had left drag behind in my childhood, but it felt like I found my way home.”

All the queens featured in the show—which will eventually turn into a coffee-table book—answer the question “Why Drag” in their own unique way. “Drag is like being a nun or a priest,” says RuPaul’s Drag Race finalist Alaska Thunderfuck. “Once you get the divine calling, you have no choice in the matter and you belong to drag for life.”

“Why Drag” is on view at the Out Hotel in New York from May 26 to August 26 before touring the U.S.



