Purity & Danger: Curated by Mathilde Friis

From gender nonconformity and alternate sexual identities to sex work and drag culture, all these realms are often considered disruptions existing outside the hegemonic order. In her seminal 1966 title Purity and Danger, anthropologist Mary Douglas explored how societies define and regulate concepts of purity and impurity, drawing distinctions between what is considered clean or dirty, sacred or profane, pure or dangerous. At the core of her theory is the idea that any disruption to order—a "matter out of place"—is perceived as open, excessive, and fluid.

​​While art and sex are often shaped by similar forces of commodification and labour, they are typically viewed as opposites or confronted, with one regarded as sacred and the other as taboo. However, expressions of sexuality and creativity have long been deeply intertwined. This exhibition explores that connection, presenting a selection of works that reimagine notions of purity and danger, embracing fluidity and openness as essential facets of the human experience.

AJ Bravo, a painter and academic, explores the relationship between pornography and eroticism in their triptych Adoration (2024) and Red Quickies series (2023). Through research into aesthetics and philosophy, Bravo's works bring the viewer into close proximity with sexual bodies and self-pleasure, directly bridging art with the pornographic medium, and through these experiences the repetitive act of the brushstroke becomes a sacred ritual for the painter. Photographic artist Anna Sampson turns her lens to her community of strippers, artists, pro-dommes, sex workers, fetishists, and queer lovers in their work Tessa for Dada (2019), Daddy in Polyester Suit (2022) and Jay & Ebony (2023). Through these photographs, Sampson captures the erotic potential of the body and its performance, centring subjects who have often been "othered" by mainstream culture, and creating a space where they can be celebrated and thrive. In the works Mister (2024) and Puppy (2024), textile artist DaddyBears blends aspects of the cute and fantastical. Mister depicts a pig, an animal often referred to as impure and dirty, overlooking its humanlike and intelligent qualities. Puppy evokes ideas of cuteness and girlhood,  subverting traditional associations of purity and innocence. Instilled with a mythical and endearing quality of escapism and humour, both works are made using hand-sewn techniques highlighting the labour and care inherent in this often feminised medium. Multidisciplinary artist Darya Diamond explores the body as both literal and symbolic—a primordial workplace. Diamond's practice focuses on reproduction by reimagining transactional intimacy, care, and invisible labour. In the work Quality Inn Long Beach (Signal Hill) Los Angeles CA (2024) Diamond reflects on the materiality of the work itself. The piece features a bedsheet, reappropriated from a hotel where Diamond once worked as a sex worker, adorned with repetitive prints from a pornographic film in which the artist once performed. In Held (2024), Diamond explores boundaries and restrictions, using soap as a medium to evoke notions of cleansing, transformation, and the possibilities of human flesh. Maite de Orbe, a visual and photographic artist, centres their work on collaborations with queer communities, drag performers, and sex workers. In their work, the artist depicts their friends as angels—not in a religious sense, but as mythological figures. Central to Molar & Cross (2023), is the reflection that sin can be a journey to queer and self-discovery. In their series The Infamous Spaghetti Sisters (2024), they depict two drag queens and professional acrobats, blurring the lines between performance art and drag culture. These works challenge dominant societal perceptions, affirming that aesthetics can be a form of political expression.

About the artists:

AJ Bravo (b.1993) is a London-based femme artist and scholar from Bilbao, Spain. Working with a variety of mediums, including photography, film, painting and mixed-media sculpture, her work is informed by her experience as a sex worker and research on pornography and aesthetics. Their painting practice using oil paint presents close ups of self-pleasure and arousal, equally questioning the relationship of art and pornography. Trained in illustration at Falmouth University, she is currently pursuing a PhD in Art & Philosophy at the University of Kent examining the relationship between censorship, sex-workers’ rights, the impact of FOSTA/SESTA and pornography.

DaddyBears (b.1995) is a female textile artist and sculptor based in London. She received her MA in Menswear Design from the Royal College of Art. She uses her knowledge of pattern cutting for garments to create 3d objects away from the body. To be able to fill a space with twisted fantasy sculptures feels like a fresh take on traditional techniques which are rarely seen to be manipulated in this way. The use of intense repetitive hand sewing featured throughout her practice is a testament to ‘women’s work’ and a meditative labour of love. These intimate techniques are used to help emote feelings of romance, escapism and humour. Her work also references ideas of transitional objects, forms of play, and a nostalgia for obsession. She received her MA in menswear design from the Royal College of Art,London (2017), and her BA in fashion design from Middlesex University, London(2015). DaddyBears was invited to take part in Palazzo Monti's spring 2022 residency in Brescia, where she subsequently had her first duo show Can’t StopCan’t Let Go (2022). After completing Roman Road Gallery’s first studio programme in London (2023), she exhibited with them in a solo show (October 2023). This year her work has been exhibited in several group shows, including  'The tropes for Falling in Love' Munich (2024) and ABG Emerging, Alice Black Gallery (2024).

Anna Sampson (b. 1993) is a London-based photographic artist who shoots and prints on film.Anna employs a queer erotic gaze in her practice, and her work is borne out of a lifelong fascination with the erotic potential of the body whilst exploring the interplay of performance, fetish, queerness and resistance. Her work is motivated by life experience, and heavily informed by intersectional feminism - specifically the intersection of gender and sexuality with race, class and the politics of the personal – and is further supported by academic inquiry. In this instance, she hopes that her recent postgraduate study of Gender & Sexuality at UCL will continue to inspire and inform her art (and vice versa) with the ultimate goal of working towards social justice for those who are marginalised and oppressed by the patriarchy.  A graduate in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Arts (2015) and UCL (2022), her work has been showcased at The Photographer’s Gallery and Christie’s in London; Turner Contemporary in Margate; Galerie Joseph Le Palais in Paris and The Untitled Space in New York. Her work has also been featured in acclaimed cult publications, such as DAZED, i-D, AnOther, Purple Fashion and The Face. Her full archive is with the UK Leather & Fetish Archive at Bishopsgate Institute.

Darya Diamond (b.1991)  is a Mexican-American artist working in print, sculpture, audio and film. She explores literal and symbolic figurations of the body as a primordial workplace. Her practice is ritually and theoretically rooted in methods of reproduction – regenerating and renegotiating the promise of transactional intimacy, care, and invisible labour. The nexus of Diamond’s research is deeply grounded relational ecosystems and the contradictory subjectivities involved in sustaining and maintaining bodies and minds. How is the body a site of mutual aide, power, pleasure, and labour? Casts and personal surveillance footage provide rich material landscapes from which to re- appropriate, re- contextualise and exhibit an ethics of care. Diamond received her MFA from Goldsmiths University of London, and her BA from Hampshire College in Massachusetts. Her work has been featured in numerous group and solo exhibitions at Sebastian Gladstone, Piloto Pardo, Saatchi Gallery in London, Tree Art Museum and more. 

Maite de Orbe (b. 1997) is a London-based Spanish artist working in photography and film.  is a London-based artist working with the mediums of photography and film. Their work blends documentary style with fantasy-driven storytelling, drawing from club dance, industrial music, and themes surrounding the AIDS crisis and queer sexual liberation. De Orbe studied BA (Hons) Photography at London College of Communication (2017-2020) and an MA in Computational Arts at Goldsmiths University (2020-2021). They currently teach as an Associate Lecturer at LCC specialising in queer storytelling and experimental filmmaking. They went on to a two-year residency at Barbican Centre (2021-2023), resulting in three end-of-year exhibitions in the public areas of Barbican.Their work has been exhibited in Frieze Art Fair, Bermondsey Project Space, Copeland Gallery and The Horse Hospital all in London, Photo St. Germain (Paris), Fotomuseum (Winterthur), Mare Karina (Venice). Selected publications include The Financial Times, Dazed, PORT Magazine, It’s Nice That, BBC, Metal Magazine, Wonderland Magazine, Schön Magazine, Revista Salvaje.

About the curator: