Emma Bentley Fox

Emma Bentley Fox is an artist living and working in Leeds, ‘Mom’ with Party Mom Society, studio holder at Convention House (ESA), co-host of Social Art Network Leeds, and member of DISrupt.

Currently Emergent Artist-in-Residence at The Baltic, Emma Bentley Fox is a socially-engaged arts practitioner, with a multi-disciplinary approach to art-making. Her practice centres community building and collaborative working to generate moments of joy, healing, intimacy and kinship. Co-founder of Party Mom Society, she has documented, produced and performed in, alternative/inclusive queer nightlife spaces that centre non-conforming Queer experiences.

In 2022 she was awarded Arts Council England’s DYCP grant, to undertake a period of research & development to archive her body of photography work, culminating in her first solo exhibition Confessions of A Party Mom, 2023, Hyde Park Art Club. This brought together a small snapshot of her archive documenting & creating 7 years of alternative queer nightlife spaces across Yorkshire. Alongside her DYCP and solo show, she has been developing a Leeds-based network of Queer archivists and Trauma-Informed archiving workshop spaces, specifically tailored to those in recovery, and exploring the potential of ‘archive’ as a site of healing, repair, storytelling and protest/resistance.

She is particularly drawn to colour analogue photography, and the expansiveness and possibility of the image/texture in photo-negatives and analogue images. She relates this back to her own experiences of gender and queerness. Archives also similarly are not fixed. They are places of negotiation, fluid, open to interpretation and Emma is interested in what can be found and lost in the gaps.  

Her work has been described as joyful, intimate, surreal, playful, tender and nostalgic. Lily Lavorato describes her work as “holding space for the unanswerable and undefinable. ‘Confessions of a Party Mom, 2023’, touches tenderly on beauty, friendship, pain and joy with a holistic nod to time passed and lives changed.”

She describes her own work as a way for her to process and explore her own experiences, particularly navigating queerness, disability and an ill body, and work with others to do the same.

Alongside her art practise, Emma has also held Producing roles including:

• Programme Producer at East Street Arts. Working with local residents and Leeds City Council, to develop the UK’s first Artist-Led Neighbourhood Plan (Mabgate, Lincoln Green and Burmantofts). Instigating and delivering 3 years of an Annual East Street Arts young person’s Summer School, and delivering We Need Queer Liberation Now, a 2 year Queer digital artist support programme, for 8 international LGBTQIA+ artists with experiences of borders and censorship. Focusing on co-creating a non-productive queer space, providing artists with new tools for self-care and reflection, WNQLN was delivered in partnership with The European Cultural Foundation, Performing Borders and artist Sayang Sounds.

• Producer at Andro & Eve, coordinating Queer cabaret, delivering Gender Awareness workshops, and queer community art projects.

• Workshops and Exhibitions Co-ordinator at Aire Place Studios

Emma also offers limited slots each year for mentoring opportunities as part of her commitment to resource-sharing and supporting other Queer and Disabled artists to access work within arts and culture. Get in touch to enquire about mentoring opportunities.

2023

Emergent Artist in Residence, The Baltic x Shape Arts

Confessions of a Party Mom, Hyde Park Art Club

Leeds Artist Show, Leeds Art Gallery

Arts Council England’s DYCP

2022

Convention House Bursary & Studio, East Street Arts

Party Mom Society Presents: Cruising, CLAY

2021

Art Hostel Commission, Art Hostel Leeds, 2021