"As today the US celebrates and commemorates the great civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., my thoughts turned to another African-American, gone too soon, whom I knew well. Troy was a dancer and performer in Paris, I met him soon after moving there in 1990, and this is one of a small group of pieces of him, drawings and paintings, that we made together. He was from a small town in Alabama and escaped the systemic racism of the South for the bright lights of Gay Paris, though not before being infected with HIV. Gay guys of my generation and older know how it was in those days, how many bright, beautiful men were victims of that awful disease, and Troy died at the start of 1993, but the few short years we had as friends were very special to me." Binnie, January 15, 2024
