Gender Fuckery in Contemporary British Art is the second installation of a series hosted by b.Dewitt gallery with guest program curator Ama Josephine Budge expanding on themes explored by artist Gray Wielebinski’s in their first UK solo show “Shaved in Opposite Directions”. For this conversation multidisciplinary artist Shadi Al-Atallah, who’s works have recently appeared in BBZ BLK BK and as the cover art for Kanye West’s “XTCY”, joins Ama to explore and lament the tense and implicating parameters of depicting, fucking with and having to wear racialised gender identities in the interweaving worlds of contemporary British art, both on and off the walls. 

Shadi Al-Atallah is a London based multidisciplinary artist. They create life-sized mixed-media paintings - distorted self-portraits that explore the intersections of mental health, queerness and racial identity. They are mainly inspired by spiritual practices, family history and their childhood in Saudi Arabia. Their latest work uses absurdity and subtle humour to explore ‘healing’ as a concept, and examine the relationships between mental health, the body and spiritual practices.

Ama Josephine Budge is a Speculative Writer, Artist, Curator and Pleasure Activist whose work navigates intimate explorations of race, art, ecology and feminism, working to activate movements that catalyse human rights, environmental evolutions and troublesomely queered identities. Ama is a PhD candidate in Psychosocial Studies with Dr Gail Lewis at Birkbeck. Her research takes a queer, decolonial approach to challenging climate colonialism in Sub-Saharan Africa with a particular focus on inherently environmentalist pleasure practices in Ghana and Kenya. 

Supported by Arts Council National Lottery Project Grants