The East L.A. Artist Behind ‘Homeboy Beautiful’ Magazine Has Championed Queer Chicano Liberation Since the 70s

This story and all of L.A. TACO's Arts coverage is sponsored by Nikos Constant.

Artist Joey Terrill, an East L.A. local, has created windows into the lives of Chicanos across several major eras. Terrill has had art pieces displayed in various museums across the country, from Marc Selwyn’s Fine Art studio in Beverly Hills to the Hammer Museum in Westwood to Orutzar in New York City’s Tribeca neighborhood. 

He was also a pivotal figure in queer liberation.

Terrill sat down with L.A. TACO in his humble Cypress Park studio to speak about AIDS advocacy, racial disparity in the art world, past lovers, an upcoming retrospective, and his famous but short-lived queer Chicano magazine, “Homeboy Beautiful.”

Terrill created the famous and beloved “Homeboy Beautiful” in 1978, a project coordinated with friends from the art world, including multimedia artist Teddy Sandoval. The first edition centered on a made-up story about an investigative reporter named Santos sneaking into an “underground secret homo homeboy party” to report for the magazine.