BOLD MELLON COLLECTIVE
Queer Joy
In July 2023 Bold Mellon Collective produced our second QUEER JOY exhibition at Stanley Arts Gallery commissioned by This is Croydon London Borough of Culture and curated by Amy-Rose Edlyn and Emilia Nurmukhamet.
This free to attend exhibition engaged submissions by emerging queer artists based in the UK and those working/living in the Borough of Croydon in response to hearing, witnessing and experiencing queer joy and the parameters within which our society contains it. This synergistic exhibition interrogates the theme of queer joy beyond the rapture… unearthing its unbound and resilient nature! What is the root of that euphoria, and where does it ignite?
Our artists have turned the theme upside down and inside out! QUEER JOY encompasses a diverse selection of artworks spanning mediums including photography, film, digital art, illustration, painting, sculpture, textiles, installation art and sound.
Queer Joy: In Conversation. Wonderfully not what we expected.
As a part of the exhibition, Bold Mellon Collective also responded to the theme with ‘Wonderfully not what we expected’ – a unique blend of film, audio, digital and instant photography that breaks the fourth wall and interrogates queer joy as a concept and as an experience. Emilia Nurmukhamet, Dear Annie, Tainted Saint (Amy-Rose Edlyn) and Venus Raven capture Asifa Lahore, Charlie Wood, Claudia Coelho and Toni Murphy through multiple lenses as they discuss their personal experiences of queer joy.
Sometimes it feels like queer joy just isn’t something that is tangible…more like an ethereal distant memory that hasn’t happened…yet. On a gloomy bank holiday weekend, 8 queer creatives gathered for a photoshoot and a chat about…you guessed it…queer joy. Together, they discuss the complexities of queer joy and the affecting experiences of different spaces, places and people. ‘Wonderfully, not what we expected’ by Emilia Nurmukhamet and Dear Annie and print and instant photography by Tainted Saint and Venus Raven is a multi-layered project that captures the process of experiencing queer joy by simply existing, creatively and authentically in a queer space.
Wonderfully Not What We Expected
A film by Dear Annie and Emilia Nurmukhamet
Featuring: Asifa Lahore , Claudia Coelho , Charlie Wood , Toni Murphy
Shot by: Emilia Nurmukhamet
Edited: Dear Annie & Emilia Nurmukhamet
Lighting: Tainted Saint
Photography: Tainted Saint & Venus Raven
Audio recording & mixing: Mud Summons Records
Music: Dear Annie
Part of: Queer Joy: In Conversation
By: Bold Mellon Collective
Creative Team:
Curated by
Amy-Rose Edlyn and Emilia Nurmukhamet
with audio descriptions by
Zoo Co, Malcolm Mellon, Maddie Mellon and Dear Annie from Bold Mellon Collective
All installation shots by
Tainted Saint
Community feedback:
“A genuinely special collection of queer excellence.”
“This event is needed for the queer community. For marginalized artists who are not seen.”
““I feel affirmed and encouraged. This event held space for complexity and discomfort alongside joy and celebration and that is importantly human.”
“This event IS queer joy! Being able to be together as a community, meet new people and express ourselves without prejudice is wonderful.
“A great opportunity to see works and hear stories from artists that I would probably otherwise not have come into contact with. I really enjoyed it and valued these new perspectives.”
Queer Joy 2023 Exhibitors
Luciano Rocha
Brazilian-born artist who studied architecture but found that it is in visual arts that his passion truly lies.
During the 2020 lockdown out of boredom he started experimenting with collage and has never stopped since.
Ruby Ingleheart
Ruby Ingleheart is a UK based visual artist using photography, sound, video, animation and other experimental mediums. A recurring emphasis throughout her work has been on humans relationship with place and the impact we have on the natural environment.
Emilia Nurmukhamet
Emilia Tatar multidisciplinary artist and creative facilitator working in documentary style performance and visual media production with a focus on reconceptualisation of queer and migrant stories. Emilia’s practice is rooted in encouraging play, authenticity and mess.
Dear Annie
I am a queer, trans artist and performer who uses dance, music and spoken word to weave binary melting stories with autobiographical beginnings. As Charlie, as Annie, I am autobiographically feeling through trans-ness and what it is to be a binary-melting body. For me, this often narratively involves my Christian upbringing – a puzzle I can’t solve but can observe – stepping from the church into the wild and finding my feet.
Tay Martin
Tay Martin is a South London multi-disciplinary Artist. Using drawing, sculpting, painting, and animating to undertake projects for a bright, layered effect in finished pieces.
Maddie Mellon
These two pieces depict the two most significant relationships in my life – at least among those that could be defined as romantic. One introduced me to the profound power of love, and the other to its many forms, its complexity, and its ability to shift and grow.
Eli Delbaere
A fine artist with an expressionist edge inspired by the haunting, deviant vision of artists such as Egon Schiele and Francis Bacon, Eli Delbaere seeks to deconstruct the tradition of the nude by portraying genderless, animalistic bodies, open to personal readings.
Amber Hahn
Amber Hahn (she/they) works with people through different methods of dialogue, collaboration and workshops. Their interdisciplinary practice encompasses glass-blowing, olfactory, sound, choreography and writing.
Unfinished Quirks
Unfinished.Quirks is an Angolan queer woman, raised in the United Kingdom. Exploring arts using the Black woman as her main inspiration and hair which is part of Black women’s identity.
Spunk Rock
er0tic art with a ❤️ / female titan.
Spunk rock is erotic art with a heart six years old and with its roots in South London. The artist’s MO is to make art that is at once funny, touching, colourful and out of the ordinary, using a style that is both naive and confident. She is inspired by anime, her own fantasies, and a love and appreciation of homoerotic symbolism.
Toni Murphy
Toni Murphy is a freelance storyteller telling stories through poetry, short works of fiction, personal essays, and online content creation. Her work centres on the experiences of BIPOC with the focus on alternative lifestyles and a spelling cultural taboos
Purrsia Kitt
Purrsia Kitt is the Kinky Feline Goddess of Burlesque celebrating queer black femme neurodivergent magic.
Venus Raven
Venus Raven is a multi disciplinary artist working in photography, performance art as well as in theatre and film – her lens is focussed on themes of kink, fetish and BDSM
Anaïs Lalange
I am a mask maker. I used to – and still do on occasions – perform. I like to express myself through different mediums, but it often comes down to creating images or visions to share with others. I accidentally started making masks during my years training and performing as a professional wrestler, Lucha Libre style .I now make masks independently from wrestling and enjoy staging photographs with them; they have become a way to react to the world around me – a location, a person, a mood. By masking someone a certain way, I feel like I get to reveal something I would not otherwise get; reach a layer of intimacy or strange or even silly surreally sensual. I invite you into my visions of a world that does not always have to make sense.
Lee Milton
@miltographic Self-taught queer artist focusing on portraiture and exploration of people. Heavily influenced by queer and popular culture capturing and showcasing people and characters who share themselves and their stories proudly and joyfully.
Tainted Saint
Tainted Saint is a multidisciplinary artist based in London. She studied at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and has since gone on to develop a career spanning many branches of the theatre industry. Amy has worked with venues such as Opera Holland Park, the Park Theatre and most recently, the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. Amy founded Bold Mellon out of a desire to create a safe, supportive and creatively free and empowering environment for queer womxn and non-binary people to thrive and experiment, and ‘project those magnificent voices’.
Daisy Blower
Daisy is a queer artist who makes miniature sculptures that reject the heteronormative dollhouses of our childhood and explore queerness in spaces – real and the imagined. They are drawn to the stories you can find amongst clutter and she really plays with this idea in their work leaving clues and questions in with the gunk.
Rachel Sampley
Rachel is a London-based lighting and video designer and creative captions designer. She is driven by a love of visual storytelling, and this is at the heart of her design process. She frequently collaborates with accessible companies including the DH Ensemble, Hot Coals, and Zoo Co.
Artist Named Nobody
Artist Named Nobody’s work evokes feelings of inspiration, joy and comfort when you see the diversity of faces, identities, disabilities and physical features in their work that remind the viewer of the uniqueness of the human form.
Pear Nuallak
Pear Nuallak’s hand-knitted and embroidered textile works offer a challenge to the question, ‘Where are you really from?’ by antagonizing both Orientalism and landownership in this ‘green and pleasant land.’
Aaran Sian
Aaran is an artist, designer and spatial practitioner working at the intersection of queerness, race, urban equity + the built environment, identity and community engagement.
Corinne
I’m a queer disabled self-portrait artist. My photographic depictions are created within the same 2 by 1.5 metre space; my bed. This year marks my fifth year of spending almost every day confined here.