Del LaGrace Volcano, the US photographer known for subversive images of LGBTQ+ communities, drag kings and sexual desire, now lives in Örebro, Sweden, a far cry from their former London life of squats, S&M fetish parties and lesbian cruising culture. At 68, Volcano is intersex and calls themself a “hermaphrodyke”, but today they “pass as apparently a little old man”. Their work, once banned by US customs for explicit lesbian content, is now entering museum collections, and a major two-site exhibition opens in summer 2025 at Auto Italia in London and the Edinburgh art festival.
From London to Sweden: a quieter life
Volcano moved to Örebro two decades ago with ex-partner Matilda Wurm, an associate professor. Their days now involve forest walks and trips to the local outdoor swimming pool with their two children. “I do miss it. I think London will always be my city,” they tell the interviewer. Örebro, a former trading hub known for its medieval castle, is “not a queer city”, and most neighbours do not know Volcano is queer. “The world wasn’t ready for me,” they say, recalling sneery press coverage from the 1990s, including a 1995 article where a journalist described “gawping” at the “woman with a beard”.
Early life and identity
Formerly known as Della Grace, Volcano was raised as a girl but had atypical puberty. On a doctor’s recommendation, they received an unwanted breast implant and were sent to live as a woman. In the 1990s, their then-girlfriend encouraged them to stop plucking facial hair, leading them to embrace their intersex identity. Their 1995 self-portrait, Self Portrait with Blue Beard, became iconic. Their parents divorced when they were a toddler, and they shuttled between their mother’s hippie household in Santa Maria, California, and their father’s strict Mormon home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They discovered both parents had same-sex affairs, but their mother was unsupportive when they came out as bisexual. They “ran away from home a lot” and officially left at 17.
Career and recognition
Volcano’s series Queer Dyke Cruising and Love Bites were hugely influential. Love Bites was briefly banned by US customs for explicit lesbian content. Despite this fame, Volcano feels their work lacks financial validation. “I had a really big crisis when I was 65, because that’s an age people are retiring,” they say. “I looked at myself through a very heteronormative capitalist lens and I felt like a failure.” Their marriage to Wurm ended, and they feared dying at 67 like their mother. Having passed that age, they have a new lease of life.
Technical skill and subjects
Volcano is frustrated that critics rarely focus on the technical quality of their photographs. They constantly quiz the interviewer on queer artists from the 1980s, sighing, “I want to give your generation a history class.” They care deeply for their subjects, seeing it as a corrective to not being seen as a child. One portrait of novelist Leslie Feinberg is described by Volcano as “the best photo of Leslie ever made”. Their archive includes labels like “trans portraits”, “femmes of power” and “precious”.
Personal life and future plans
Volcano had a “very, very, very active sex life” but is not dating now. “I would like to have some kind of romance in my life again,” they say, “but nobody measures up to Matt.” They were with Wurm for 14 years, their third marriage but the only one “for love”. Their first two marriages (1982 and 1995) were to cis gay men, the second giving them the surname Volcano. They plan a memoir but say “some people need to die” and “statutes of limitations need to have expired” before it can be published. Their ultimate dream is a compound in Sweden where “at least 10 people can come and stay, to research, study” their Queer Archive of Resistance. “I will be telling my stories and showing my pictures and cooking for people, having interesting conversations. That’s the best case scenario.”
Exhibition details
Del LaGrace Volcano is at Auto Italia, London, 17 July to 25 October 2025, and Love Bites Back is at Edinburgh art festival, 19-30 August 2025.
