New exhibition opens in Wakefield in celebration with LGBT+ History Month UK

The Art House is delighted to invite Whiskey Chow, a London-based artist, Chinese drag king, and tutor at the Royal College of Art, to curate “SOFT & HARD: Beyond Recognition and Queer Coding”.

As the selected artists travel up North from London for their first major group exhibition in a public gallery since graduating, the exhibition examines the artists’ shared interest in exploring what “Queer spirit” means in artistic practice today.

The new project brings together the work of some of the most exciting emerging artists working today, including Elena Hoskyns-Abrahall, Emma Sheehy, Hongmin An, Jim Rampage, Leonie Cameron, Net Warner, Sean Synnuck, Sojung Park, Yuqing Lin, Candice Dehnavi, Maya Erin Masuda, Theresa Weber and Rose Arbuthnott, all showing work alongside internationally renowned Whiskey Chow.

Coming from an activist background in China, Chow has been engaging in political and societal issues in her practice for many years.

Her curatorial practice feeds into her "artivist” ambition, which sees her create and curate artwork that continuously negotiates with systematic inequality and makes space for marginalised minorities.

Upon entering the exhibition, viewers will be immediately greeted by a series of new sculpture, installation, film and textiles that investigate how a new generation of Queer artists create space for themselves and their community through art that goes beyond vanity, hypersexuality and gender performativity.

“SOFT & HARD” attempts to address the feeling that many people share that the art scene does not represent contemporary experiences or desires of real queer narratives in art.

Living in different timelines of LGBTQIA+ movements, and constantly negotiating with complex power dynamics from intersectional and cross-cultural perspectives, Queer artists often invent new visual approaches to address their desires and concerns.

The artists in the exhibition come together to present a series of brand-new works that explore these ideas and themes of identity, stereotypes and cultural projections of gender and queer communities.

The exhibition continues across February – the month celebrating LGBT+ History Month in the UK – an annual month-long observance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender stories.

"SOFT & HARD” is on display until March 16, 2024. Open Tuesday-Saturday, 9am-4pm, The Art House, Drury Lane, Wakefield, WF1 2TE. Free entry.