Very sad news...

Noel Graydon suffered a fatal heart attack on Saturday 7 July 2007 in Brisbane. Noel was riding his push bike and suffered an asthma attack triggering a major heart attack caused by an arterial blood clot.

The funeral was held on Friday 13 July 2007 in Brisbane, Australia - with his parents, sister and wife Annette and their two daughters and friends. He was 36. He will be sadly missed by all.

Tributes are appearing on many other various blog web sites too. Noel received global exposure as the subject of Liberty In Restraint and his recent podcasts on YouTube with Venomhaus podcasts. As well as an upcoming exhibition of Noel's work in Melbourne, another ironic twist of fate is that the North American rights for the documentary, and VOD rights in UK, have just been picked up, and an exhibition of his work is being pursued in New York.

Noel's journey embraced fathering two daughters and an ongoing struggle to reconcile fetish life with family life. After years of drug addiction, then total recovery with his parents help, it is all the more tragic that he died at his parents place after being healthy for many years.

The clandestine world of bondage and discipline, dominance-submission, sadomasochism, fetish fashion and alternative sex was a powerful attraction for Noel Graydon. For five years he trained and worked as a BDSM Master, aka "Master Venom", and established the friendships which led him to genuinely capture this clandestine world "as an insider looking out." The documentary follows Noel in his quest for authenticity... revealing the mentors, muses and masochists who inspired his artistic endeavours... showing the passion for his art and its themes.

"Over the years that I knew Noel while making Liberty with him, I was always impressed by his originality and courage to create dangerous visions. One of the themes of Liberty In Restraint is "family" - encapsulating both the queer community ("my alternative family" says Noel) and his wife and children - and in the creation of his fine art satire "Suffer The Little Children" - exposing the hypocrisy of the church, highlighting the issue of priest pedophilia." says director, Michael Ney.

Noel began his career as an assistant to a commercial photographer and assistant video cameraman in several video production companies. During this time he pursued freelance photojournalism with several newspapers and street press. As a photojournalist Noel covered a variety of fields including humanities, Gen X and Sexual lifestyle issues. His work was published in many magazines in Australia such as "Commercial Photography", "Australian Women's Forum", "Substance" and "Outrage", and "SkinTwo" in UK. He also spent time with "Flesh" magazine as their BDSM columnist.

In Memoriam

Noel Graydon
16 September 1971 to 7 July 2007