SF/Arts Curator Insight

Outrageous is a woefully inadequate term to describe SF artist Jerome Caja's practice as a painter and drag performer. He often appeared (at any time of day) to be arriving from a wild night out, his tall, pale frame barely covered by ragged black lace and torn fish nets; the gentlest challenge smirking across intentionally smeared red lips. This jewel-box exhibition features paintings, photos, and ephemera rarely seen since Jerome’s death in 1995. These “Little Lovelies” (Jerome's term) are exquisite miniatures rendered inside lockets, on bottle caps and across small scraps of paper with the "paints" you'd find in a drag queen's handbag (nail polish, glitter, lipstick, and eye liner).