Emotional Processing

As the winner of the Warrington Contemporary Arts Festival Open 2016, Bex Ilsley will present a new body of work which explores the performance of the self, particularly in the digital realm. Ilsley combines a variety of fabricated and appropriated objects, props and locations to construct surreal, sci-fi portraits and video works; primarily disseminated via social media and her website.

Distributing images, particularly of women online, provokes questions around the ethics and intentions involved. Ilsley acknowledges this tension but ultimately enjoys the autonomy of creating her own self-image on these digital platforms, seeing the potential for them to be more or less honest, artificial or authentic; they may also travel further and live on longer than Ilsley herself.

Image courtesy of Annie Feng