Gemma Rolls-Bentley still remembers the first time she saw work by a queer artist. She was in her early 20s and had just moved to London when she came across an exhibition of Catherine Opie’s black and white photographs at the Stephen Friedman Gallery. By this point, she had two art history degrees under her belt but nothing she had been taught about had been contextualised as queer. “Then I saw all these pictures of dykes on bikes and leather daddies – in a blue chip gallery, in Mayfair!” she recalls. “It was something that I’d never seen endorsed or validated in that way. It was like: they’re my people and they’re hanging in a gallery!”
The encounter prompted a devoted interest in researching and platforming queer art. For almost two decades now, Rolls-Bentley has produced exhibitions and built collections of work by LGBTQ+ artists across the world. In 2022, she curated the Brighton Beacon Collection, the largest permanent display of queer art in the UK. Last year, she curated Dreaming of Home at Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in New York, an exploration of the comforts and complications of queer and trans domestic life.
