Manchester artist Will Belshah’s work draws on the legacy of Derek Jarman - the LGBTQ+ activist who used paint and film to express his concerns over the growing mistreatment of queer people following the AIDS crisis.
Will, who uses any pronouns, takes on a reactive approach to art, much like Derek. Both of them infuse passionate emotion onto canvas, responding to the current political climates of their time with contrasting colours, 3D elements, or carving taboo phrases into the paint.
For Will, grief over personal and community-wide mistreatment of queer people in the past, as well as the frustration of where LGBTQ+ rights are heading in the future, fuels their work.
They said: “Most of my painting are very angry and queer.
“I always used to paint when I was younger, and really enjoyed art, but felt like it was inaccessible to me.”
Will, who was nine at the time Section 28 came to an end, still remembers the impact of the policy that prohibited the promotion of homosexuality in education: “People just weren’t used to queer people being open about their identity in that kind of space.
“Because of that, growing up, I didn’t get the visibility I needed to believe I could be a queer artist.”
Now, at 28, Will works in search engine optimisation, but their passion for abstract art was reinvigorated after visiting the Derek Jarman PROTEST exhibit at the Manchester Art Gallery.
They said: “His exhibition lined up with how I was feeling from a protest perspective.
“A lot of his art he made during the Thatcher era and I feel like history is repeating itself in terms of the policies that are being introduced.”
Will is speaking of the government’s decision to ban conversion therapy but only for gay and bisexual people, excluding the transgender community.
I was lucky enough to view one of Will’s pieces, which they’re shipping to a buyer in Australia. Black and red smears of paint fight for dominance on the plain canvas. There are smidges of other colours too, perhaps a glimpse into what the piece was originally supposed to be.
Will said: “It was a different painting at first.
“But then after the Jarman exhibit, I felt free to be more expressive. I wanted to let out all of the anger and happiness inside me.”
Inspired by the Derek’s portrait “Queer”, Will carved similar words - once primarily used as homophobic slurs, but have now been reclaimed by the LGBTQ+ community - into the canvas.
They said: “At the time, ‘queer’ was used as an insult, but I quite like using that word to express myself. And ‘faggot’. It makes straight people feel uncomfortable.”
And, Will admitted, there’s actually some sweet chilli sauce on the canvas somewhere: “I came back after a night out and I wanted to add something else to it, but I ran out of paint.
“I was drunk and wanted to do something stupid. I regretted it the next morning.”
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