Sacred Defiance, Rewritten
Human: Andrew Burt a.k.a. Virgin X | London, United Kingdom
Before the spectacle, before the latex and the ritual, there was a question: what if the figures we were taught to revere had more to say? For Virgin X, that question became a practice—one rooted in both rupture and reclamation. Raised Catholic in small-town America, the image of the Virgin Mary was ever-present, but incomplete. “I always felt she had more to say than what the bible allowed her,” they explain. What emerged was not parody, but expansion: a reimagining of silence into voice, purity into complexity, divinity into something unapologetically queer. That transformation is not aesthetic alone. It is structural. Growing up visibly queer in a conservative environment meant learning early what it meant to be marked as “other.” Before language, before identity could even fully form, there was recognition—from others, often hostile. “I was bullied for being gay before I knew what gay was,” they recall. The response was not immediate resistance, but a negotiation with survival: first attempting to fit, then abandoning the effort entirely. What replaced it was something sharper, more durable—an embrace of self that no longer sought permission.
Hood: Libidex @libidex | Corset: Misty Couture @misty_couture | Necklace: from stylist
That same defiance runs through the figure of Virgin X. Reclaiming the Virgin Mary is not simply about queering a symbol—it is about interrogating the systems that made that symbol untouchable in the first place. Religion, in their framing, has often been a site of exclusion, but faith itself remains something more expansive. “To live life means to have enough faith in life to keep going,” they say. In that distinction, their work finds its tension: not a rejection of belief, but a refusal of the structures that attempt to contain it.Performance becomes the medium where that tension is made visible. Their shows move between humor and confrontation, spectacle and intimacy, often within the same breath. There is an intentional volatility to it—a refusal to let the audience settle. “If you can make an audience laugh, you can get them to listen to anything you say,” they note. What follows is not passive entertainment, but a kind of emotional recalibration. The work invites people to feel, but also to question why they feel what they feel.“Catholicism is very BDSM darling”
That provocation is not incidental. It is, in their view, the responsibility of the artist. “Art should never be complacent,” they state. The goal is not to reproduce what already exists, but to disrupt it—to access something not yet fully articulated and give it form. In this way, Virgin X operates less as a fixed persona and more as a conduit. What began as a character has blurred into something more fluid, more personal. “Virgin has become less about a character and more about just me,” they admit. That fluidity extends into the visual language of the work. Latex, masks, and religious iconography collapse into each other, stripping hierarchy from both the sacred and the profane.
Headpiece: Hysteria Machine @hysteriamachine | Collar: Vintage Black Magic @vintageblackmagic | Gloves: Majesty Black @majestyblack
“Catholicism is very BDSM darling,” they say, not as provocation for its own sake, but as a reframing of aesthetic lineage. The visual world of Virgin X doesn’t reject tradition—it exposes its underlying codes and retools them.Underneath it all is something quieter: survival. Creativity, for them, began not as ambition but as escape. Childhood performances—private, unobserved—were a way to step outside environments that felt hostile or limiting. “My imagination saved me,” they say. What began as dissociation has since transformed into articulation. The stage is no longer a place to disappear, but a place to be seen—on their own terms.“Queer excellence [is about] being defiant, rebellious, controversial, bold… totally unapologetic about who and what we are.”
That insistence on self-definition shapes how they understand queer excellence. It is not about polish or perfection, but about presence. “Being defiant, rebellious, controversial, bold… totally unapologetic about who and what we are.” It is an active state, not a static one—a continual refusal to shrink, soften, or translate for comfort.And yet, for all its intensity, the work is not without care. There is an undercurrent of connection that runs through everything Virgin X creates—a recognition that performance is not just about expression, but about exchange. Whether confronting institutional belief systems or channeling personal history, the work ultimately points outward. Toward community. Toward responsibility. Toward a broader world in crisis.
Headpiece: Hysteria Machine @hysteriamachine | Choker: Endless Limited @endless_ltd | Chains: prong jewellery @prongjewellery | Gloves: Majesty Black @majestyblack | Jacket: from stylist
In recent years, that responsibility has taken on a more direct form. Their platform has become a site of advocacy, particularly in support of Palestinian communities—an extension of their belief that art and activism are not separate practices, but intertwined ones. The same voice that reimagines religious iconography now speaks into real-world urgency, collapsing distance between symbol and reality.When Virgin X steps on stage, the question of identity remains deliberately unresolved. It is both revelation and construction, truth and exaggeration. “Sometimes she feels like a shield… sometimes like my truest nature,” they say. That ambiguity is not something to resolve, but something to hold.Because ultimately, the work is not asking to be understood in fixed terms. It is asking to be experienced. To be felt. To disrupt, to unsettle, to expand. And for those encountering Virgin X for the first time, the message is direct, even disarmingly so: love, freedom, and the insistence that no one exists outside of either.
Headpiece and Jesus Christ top: Hysteria Machine @hysteriamachine | Gloves: Majesty Black @majestyblack
Credits
Story: Levi Rodriguez @itslikethejeansHuman, Styling and MUA: Andrew Burt a.k.a. Virgin X @the_virgin_xPhoto: Raphaël Neal @raphaelneal.1