Bridie Daniels

Hi, my name is Bridie. I'm 30 years old, pansexual, and agender (they/them). I guess I would call myself a digital artist, but it's more of a hobby these days than anything I do consistently. I run a little LGBTQIA+ social project in Leeds called 15-Minute Friendships, which you might recognise me from. If you wanted to find out a little bit more about that however, we've got our own Instagram (@15minutefriendships) and website (www.15minutefriendships.com). It's basically a series of free-to-attend pop-up events designed to combat loneliness in the queer community and it's something I've just started that I'm really proud of! Other than that, I spend a lot of my free time soaking up the city's amazing queer culture. I'm a big lover of comics and cartoons, and I'm currently in my patterns era when it comes to fashion!

The piece is called Head in the Clouds and I'd love to tell you I made it for a very radical or politically motivated reason, but it was just one of those pieces that sort of came together on a whim. I'd say the only conscious decision I made going in was that I knew I wanted the subject to be a non-binary individual.

There are so many different ways trans bodies can present, and while androgyny is totally valid and has its place, it has accidentally become a bit of a standard by which a lot of non-binary people (myself included) hold themselves. Androgyny isn't always possible or desirable for everybody, and there are countless body types out there worth celebrating.

I was also thinking about experiences of sex and sexuality and what that can look like outside of the gender binary. This kind of manifested in a dream-like setting for the piece. I find a lot of artwork exploring subject matter like rope-play is a little more provocative or hard-core, which I love, but there's a softer side to it too that I wanted to depict.