Tenneson, C., Tomlinson, K., 2025.

Queer British Painting: On Gender (2015 - 2025)

Queer British Painting: On Gender (2015 - 2025) explores how intersectional, trans+, non-binary, intersex, gender-diverse, feminist, and queer painters have interrogated gender through painting within an era of heightened transgender visibility and subsequent hostile political climate. This research investigates how these artists have represented, celebrated and reimagined gender through painting. Since 2015, we have witnessed both an increase of trans visibility within mainstream culture and a growing resurgence of contemporary painting within theoretical, institutional and market contexts yet these concurrent developments have not yet been considered in relation to one another. Queer British Painting: On Gender (2015 - 2025) seeks to address this gap by positioning intersectional, trans+, non-binary, intersex, gender-diverse, feminist, and Queer painting practices as central to the current discourse of Contemporary British painting. The timescale of painting studied within the research project (2015 - 2025) spans from the Trans Tipping Point (2015) to the Supreme Court ruling (2025) on the definition of 'sex'. This period is examined alongside the significant and rapid resurgence of painting following its supposed 'death'. Notably, 2015 marked a pivotal point with the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World, curated by Laura Hoptman, which provoked widespread critical debate about painting's renewed visibility and relevance. To date, these co-occurring developments in recent socio-political and painting history remain largely overlooked, with limited efforts to connect or define these artists' contributions to both mainstream painting discourse and the Queer field. Queer British Painting: On Gender (2015 - 2025) is a pioneering, internationally significant and original study placing intersectional, trans+, non-binary, gender-diverse, feminist, and queer perspectives at the centre of Contemporary British Painting. This project fills a critical gap by addressing a significant under-representation in contemporary painting scholarship, offering a fresh and urgent perspective on 21st-century Queer British art, set against the backdrop of today's political climate and evolving landscape of Trans+ rights. The research will be disseminated across the United Kingdom within a series of thematic group exhibitions. The first group exhibition will focus on figuration, hosted by Amici x Brooke Bennington, Hastings, UK in May 2026. While Queer exhibitions are becoming more visible and increasingly integrated into the programming of major institutions, Queer painting remains on the periphery - often regarded as a traditional or conservative medium. The dissemination of the research within the exhibitions aims provide representation and visibility of Queer painters investigating gender and to spark discussion around the absence of Queer voices within Contemporary British Painting.