© Bex Ilsley, 2016

VITA
*1988
2013 – 2016 BA (Hons) Fine Art / Manchester School of Art

Awards
2016
– First Prize / WCAF16 Open Exhibition.
– Cheong Kam Hee Prize / Woon Foundation.

Talks and Residencies
2016
– Creative Residency for Make Liverpool at Elevator Studios
– Online Residency ‘Dancing Girl Emoji’ for Delta Sorority
– Visiting Artist and Guest Lecturer, Kendall College of Art and Design, Grand Rapids, MI, USA.

Exhibitions
2016
– Recent Graduates Exhibition / Affordable Art Fair, Battersea, London
– Liminal Confines / The James Black Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada
– WCAF16 Open Exhibition / Warrington Museum & Art Gallery, Warrington
– REThink Art Digital Festival / House of Culture, Rethymno, Greece
– CODEX / Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI, USA
– Isthisit? #18 / Onlin
– After Eden / LATARKA, Budapest, Hungary
– The Beautiful is Always Bizarre / Cupola Contemporary, Sheffield
– Reply All / Grosvenor Gallery, Manchester
– Woon Foundation Prize 2016 / BALTIC 39, Newcastle
– New Creative Talents / 5plus Architects, Lever Street, Manchester
– Degree Show / Grosvenor Building, Manchester School of Art
– PRE: / Goodstock, Manchester
– IRL:URL / The James Black Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada
– Paint By Number #1 / The Brunswick, Leeds
– Oh! Tell… / for Caustic Coastal / Room 554, Britannia Hotel, Manchester

2015
– Digital Grotesque / Oranbeg Press / Online
– Cosmic Unicorn and Cake / The Moon, Grand Rapids, MI, USA
– The New Flesh / as part of The Wrong – New Digital Art Biennale / VIVO Media Arts Centre, Vancouver, BC, Canada
– The Artificial / Safehouse 1, Peckham
– Soft Matter / The Wonder Inn, Manchester
– Chromophilic / Link Gallery, Manchester
– Tumbling Die / Grosvenor Gallery, Manchester

Press
2016
Balaclava.Q, Warrington Worldwide, Culture Warrington, Warrington Guardian, Contextus, A-N, Koiqouise, Vagina Dentata Zine, OVO, Paint by Number, Tribe Magazine, The Georgia Straight
2015
CBC, Seeing Neon, Print All Over Me, Backseat Mafia, Entityy Magazine, Rat Magazine, Ballad Of

I am a new media artist working primarily within the fields of self-portrait photography, video and digital performance.

My work explores the concept of the performed personality in virtual space, and the ways in which that practice has the potential to be both more and less honest than the performance of personality in physical space. All of my work responds in some way to the performativity of being and the predicament of being seen.

Accepting the body’s position as an object, I view this predicament as a source of autonomy and power as well as a potential trap. I do not seek to take a position on this, but instead to ask questions. Can we still expect to be treated humanely when presenting as avatars? Will debates surrounding the body remain relevant as we merge with technology? If not, should we use technology to transcend our bodies before we have resolved the sociological and political issues surrounding the way they are viewed?

I aim to create narratives of the self and the Other which twist in and out of the real and the virtual, the artificial and the authentic, progressing through journeys of discovery, only to end up where they began.