Featured Work
CAMP STOOL
RYP No.04, 2021
Ride Your Pony & Abingdon Studios, Blackpool
A prissy bar stool.
Camp Stool 2021 explores our relationship with these social spaces, often forgetting that queer people exist in them too.
A jukebox playing quietly in the background under the roars laughter and glasses clinking. I remember visiting a Men’s Social Club during my childhood, sitting on my Grandad’s lap at the bar. I remember watching old TV shows with typically heteronormative male figures in their wifebeaters and suspenders ranting about the ‘new world’.
My grandad passed away when I was 9 years old. He was an old fashioned guy, but my relationship with him was the most important to me. When I got into my first queer relationship in my early twenties, my nan told me he wouldn’t have approved. I think he would have loved this piece of work, personally.
Champagne Velour, piping, and fringing elevates this typical bar stool into a new queer light. The moving element of this piece emphasises the performative nature of being queer in these kinds of spaces; finding it uncomfortable to be oneself, twirling silently to the jukebox music.
This piece will be displayed alongside a QR code to a playlist curated to empower and inspire the queer community.
Three's A Crowd, 2021 Curated by Short Supply Hosted at Abingdon Studios Participating Artists: Grace Collins // Kate Hodgson // Lydia McCaig // Mollie Balshaw // Rebekah Beasley // Thomas Griffiths
Three's A Crowd, 2021 Curated by Short Supply Hosted at Abingdon Studios Participating Artists: Grace Collins // Kate Hodgson // Lydia McCaig // Mollie Balshaw // Rebekah Beasley // Thomas Griffiths
Three's A Crowd, 2021 Curated by Short Supply Hosted at Abingdon Studios Participating Artists: Grace Collins // Kate Hodgson // Lydia McCaig // Mollie Balshaw // Rebekah Beasley // Thomas Griffiths
Three's A Crowd, 2021 Curated by Short Supply Hosted at Abingdon Studios Participating Artists: Grace Collins // Kate Hodgson // Lydia McCaig // Mollie Balshaw // Rebekah Beasley // Thomas Griffiths
MASC 4 MASK
Three's A Crowd, 2021
Short Supply & Abingdon Studios, Blackpool
On 22nd July at the Three’s A Crowd preview, I debuted my first performance piece from the window gallery of Abingdon Studios alongside a new body of work.
Working in conversation with Thomas Griffiths, Masc 4 Mask Series was shown in tandem with their work on a complimentary level. Both practices linked by several key themes around queer identity.
Covering exploration of our own identities through humour, Thomas and I both put a novelty twist on serious themes of otherness and discomfort. Making often quiet hidden feelings physical, we faced them head on, so to speak…
The performance took place from 4-5 pm and the audience was encouraged to think crochet wizardry, processing through process and full coverage peep show upon their arrival.
Material Concerns, 2019-20 Paper Gallery, Manchester Continued through Lockdown
Material Concerns 2019-20 Paper Gallery, Manchester Continued through Lockdown
Material Concerns, 2019-20 Paper Gallery, Manchester Continued through Lockdown
Material Concerns, 2019-20 Paper Gallery, Manchester Continued through Lockdown
BEDTIME STORIES
Material Concerns 2019-20
Collaborative Show with Mollie Balshaw
Initially exhibited in Paper Gallery, Manchester
Continued throughout Lockdown
Material Concerns explores the materiality of media as a starting point for explorations of queer identity. The concept that gender is a construct and sexuality is ever-fluid is examined literally through process; a heavy impasto mark, a precision collage or a unified coat of spray paint. These techniques and processes manipulate the perceived boundaries of their medium, expressing a need to rebel, rearrange and take inspiration from reality and fiction in the re-calling of the LGBT+ experience.
With the barrage of skepticism and negativity that queer individuals are known to face through the regular invalidation of their own identities - as if their existence is up for debate - it feels appropriate to return to something physical, of substance, with a presence that cannot be denied.
These works incorporate paper in disparate ways; Balshaw’s approach presents a controlled chaos, materials pushed to the limits of their capacity with an intentional exploitation of chance. Beasley’s works take the opposite approach; harsh lines and appropriated imagery that emphasise the idea that all material, and by extension all narrative context, is up for interpretation and can be taken into one’s own hands.
Material grants the artist control.