Pride Through Personal Spaces – Pride’23.

‘Out of the closet, into the streets’ – This Pride, Dark Yellow Dot reflects on the intimate spaces that many queer identities have taken solace in understanding self-identity and expression. Through the form of a bedroom-like scene we are outwardly celebrating those pivotal moments of ‘queer’ discovery and exploration that comfort and inform our pridefulness to identify within our LGBTQ+ community. We have collaborated with some amazing queer artists to create a diverse exhibition spanning across two gallery spaces, 1B Window Gallery and Genesis Cinema Gallery. Each gallery offers a different reflection into Queerness, whilst maintaining an unapologetic dignity within LGBTQ+ recognition. 1B Window Gallery will have an interactive element for you to share your pride with us on social media #intimatereflections 

Igor Rzosinski

I explore the relationship between queerness and masculinity as social constructs. Neither is real or tangible – so in my explorations I approach either one or both from different angles – personal & impersonal, sexual & non-sexual, overt & covert, etc. For some it’s personal, for others private, sometimes it’s just part of a person’s character or identity. It’s rare to see someone who’s comfortable showcasing both their queerness and masculinity, and even rarer to see it portrayed as desirable. What is widely considered niche or undesirable – I look at through a lens of lust or idealisation.

The culmination of a year long project revolving around documenting the intersection of queerness and masculinity in my day to day life.

@iasterart

Tiegan Handley

Gender and Feminism are prevalent in the ethos of Tiegan’s work and the interrelations between them, both in the public sphere and in their own experience, a foundational part of their practice. The boundaries and blurred lines of their own gender identity and queerness and their own thoughts about them have become the pillars of their work. Tiegan is coming to the end of their Fine Art BA(Hons) at the University of Leeds and splits their time between Leeds and Southend-on-Sea, Essex.

@plantfr0g

The Shaven Raven

Shaven Raven Designs is the moniker of East London based graphic designer and illustrator, Ufuoma Urie. After a career freelancing, the UAL alumni started a greeting card and gift wrap brand in 2020. Designs feature nods to her Nigerican heritage as well as celebrating black/queer identities, movie monsters, symbols of femme horror chic, sex and magik. Recently she has focused on typographic works; illustrating words with long histories that relate to sex, kink and slang born in the queer community but now co-opted by the mainstream.

‘​I’ve always been interested in words: Their etymology, evolution, pronunciation, intent, meaning etc. When I illustrate the words, I am putting it on show! Celebrating it! ​I’m also asking myself: ​How did these expressions and slang words we use come to be? Has it changed? Will it change again over the course of time? What will it mean a generation from now? ​Is it a signifier of our times? ​Who uses it? What does it mean? “Queer” ​has a very long history and ​was once a slur for LGBTQIA+ folk yet has been reclaimed and is now used by many (including myself) to self-identify and set ourselves apart from those who are heterosexual/cis-gender​. ​I like to think the expression ‘QUEER AF’ is a​ ​further proclamation or impassioned statement of one’s security in their queerness! Almost hyperbole if you will, as if to say “I am SO incredibly queer it beggars​ ​ belief!’ – The Shaven Raven (Ufuoma Urie).

@the_shaven_raven

www.shavenravendesigns.co.uk/

Kevin Kane

Kevin Kane is a queer figurative artist who works using multiple media, creating work from the dual perspectives of both a scientist and an artist. Kane enjoys this juxtaposition between the traditional and the contemporary, influenced by the art of both Chuck Close, Lucien Freud, Stanley Spencer and David Hockney.

Kane’s passion is in portraiture and depicting a subtle, almost hidden, narrative. His work traverses the use of both traditional materials and techniques such as paint and canvas; towards the digital, working with an iPad with limitless possibilities and into programming.

@kevin.kane.art

www.kevinkaneartist.com/

Zoey Chang

Zoey Chih Ying Chang is a Taiwanese artist based in London, with a degree on painting from Royal College of Art. She is a mixed media artist with a focus on oil painting and recycled materials, through the diverse materials picked for different projects, her subject matter has always been related to her experience being queer, a obsession over internet aesthetics, disregard of gender norms etc. As a result, the gender identity and sexuality of the figures in her works are often the starting point for understanding her works.

Tender Rainbow is made with three weeks worth of hand sewing during covid separation, using unwanted fabrics found within the household. Half an old bathroom mat, old knitted scarf, a plastic pineapple head…etc, intimate, tender, huggable, like an old pillow. Like us queer people, we were the unwanted, before it was known that we are huggable.

@art_zoeychang

Rebecca Chitticks

“I studied Fine Art at the University of the Creative Arts, specializing in painting. My artworks have been shortlisted for numerous prizes, including New Emergence Art prize, the prestigious Ashurst Emerging Artist Prize and Harley Gallery Open. I have had a total of four solo shows, the latest of which, Ones and Zeros, was selected by Dark Yellow Dot for a funded show at the Genesis, London. I have also been selected for a number of group shows, including One Piece a charity event to raise money for LGBTIA+ people facing grave discrimination in Chechnya. As well as being selected by HKS Architects in Fitzrovia for the show Hardest Hue to Hold. My work was also included in Queer(ing) Space in Deptford, an exhibition positing the question ‘what does queer space mean to you?’ An important theme for any marginalized community to explore.

My work examines how the narratives of our private publics are conditioned by traditional approaches to portraiture. I seek to rebalance the dominant heterosexual male and often objectifying gaze within portraiture by centering my lived experience as a non-binary queer person and artist. I juxtapose realistically rendered figures with vivid abstract backgrounds relating to and interacting with the subject. I paint on square canvases evoking the Instagram tile format, thus widening my critique of the normative gaze to include virtual as well as real spaces. Humankind increasingly inhabits a digital realm, fashioned in its own image.” – Rebecca Chitticks

@rchitticks

Anti Artifacts (Lu Tarplee)

Lu Tarplee, otherwise known as Anti Artifacts, is an artist and creative from the West Country who specialises in sculpture using silicone and clay-based products. Anti Artifacts focuses on the abstraction of flesh and the way it interacts with nature, creating objects of ritual and surreal experimentations. For this exhibition, Anti Artifacts has created a sculpture combining a disco ball with their distinguishable style of flesh-like clay eyes, shifting the focus of the work from interacting with natural elements to connecting with nightlife, a significant part of queer culture.

@antiartifacts