This year, the Festival is very proud to partner with Gay City in creating a showcase of queer artists in the 2016 Festival. Tara Hardy, Gay City’s Arts Coordinator, met with our planning team and recommended sculptor Flynn Bickley as the perfect person to curate this showcase.
Actual Size by Flynn Bickley
Flynn Bickley is a Seattle based queer/trans doll and mixed media artist and is a current member of the Gay City Arts Curating Council. For the last ten years Flynn has been an active member of the Seattle arts community through volunteering for Gender Odyssey, ArtsCorps, Artist Trust and the School for Acrobatics and New Circus Arts (SANCA). Helping these powerful and progressive groups gives Flynn goosebumps and makes him really happy. He is a founding member of Seattle’s original Art Lending Library (2008-2013) which brought local, original artwork to regular folks around Seattle for free!
In 2015 Flynn received an Artist Trust GAP (grants for artist projects) grant for travel to Pittsburgh to research the transgender doll artist Greer Lankton. In December 2015 Flynn was featured in the monthly Fabric photoessay by Amanda Manitach and Miguel Edwards in CityArts online. Flynn spends as much time as possible in the studio and the rest of his time with his partner tending their home in South Park, staring at chickens, gardening, biking and working at Second Use Building Materials-The Greatest Building Salvage Company the Universe.
Flynn’s thoughts on building this showcase:
The Gay City Arts showcase at the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival is a group of Queer (and beyond) artists speaking their erotic truths with deep, imaginative intellects and boundless technical range. When I was thinking about the subject matter and assembling a call I had some questions; What does erotic art look/feel like to me?, To another?, What forms can erotic art take beyond flesh and human forms?, Is it all about sex?, Is the erotic everywhere? How does the role of erotic art differ for Queer/Gay/Lesbian/Bi/Trans/QPOC/QTPOC people from those who don’t identify as such? Feeling a little intimidated by the number and magnitude of these questions (and working with a very short timeline), I reminded myself there are so many answers; what one artist brings to the conversation will answer those questions uniquely and always ask more. How exciting!
I decided the best way to curate this showcase was to keep an open mind and encourage experimentation wherever possible. I have known some of these artist for years. Some I have only admired from afar and just met through this show. What impresses me is about all of them is their technical skill, vision, personality, humor, beauty, pride, honesty and commitment to their experience of the erotic. It takes guts to be an artist and a Queer artist at that. I am so proud of this group.
My deepest gratitude goes out the The Seattle Erotic Arts Festival organizers. The Gay City Arts showcase would not be at SEAF without the space they provided for our artists, fee free. Thank you for the opportunity to bring Queer voices to this awesome event.
The Gay City Art Showcase Invited Artists
Axe to the Stomach Hack off the Head by Markel Uriu
Sofya Belinskaya
Flynn Bickley – Guest Curator
Smitty Buckler & Collaborators
Mary Anne Carter
Dylan Leigh Chaumont
Duncan Gibbs
Tobi Hill-Meyer
McKenna Jane
Jack Johnston
Hannah Jove
Koji Kubota
Grant Rehnberg
Markel Uriu