In the basement of the Herbert Gallery in Coventry, Daniel Lismore is wearing a gown of pink chiffon and silver lame, a chainmail headdress and a full face of makeup, and wielding a glue gun over a brooch. It’s a striking scene for a Tuesday morning. But, for artist Lismore, it’s the norm. He is, as he says, a “living sculpture”.
Lismore wore something similar for his Ted talk in 2019, for a campaign for H&M in 2015, for a photo with Nigel Farage in 2016 (for this occasion he accessorised, with the word “cunt” and an arrow on his forearm), and for a selfie with the Princess Maria-Olympia of Greece posted a day after we meet. He says it typically takes abut 20 minutes to get ready and he wore the same throughout lockdown, albeit with “a big pair of slippers”.
