
Bex Ilsley is an artist based in Coventry who started her career on Instagram and has even been promoted by Miley Cyrus. Ilsley explains her work, Fire Sale! about women’s emotional labour.
“Fire Sale! was a streamed performance which was projected live onto a huge wall at the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea in October 2016. I was asked to show there as part of their Recent Graduates portion, rather than showing work in a booth with the specific intention of selling. After some discussion with the curator, the fantastic
“There was an iPad in front of the projection fixed to a Facebook messenger window, which allowed people to converse with me while watching my live reaction, and they could see my text responses. I wish people had gotten a little deeper with me, but this was really rather experimental and I wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of engagement. I still think its a funny piece, I had a lot of fun doing it. Ones that stick in my mind were requests for a horoscope reading, a good chat about aliens, the person who told me I ‘needed Jesus’ and invited me to a church meeting and of course the 10+ requests for me to undress.”
Words and Images courtesy of artist, Bex Ilsley