About the Exhibition

Mark Bletcher // Will Hughes // Ella “Red” Crimson // Sara Designs Arts // Sullivan Alenezi

Harbour Printworks is proud to announce the launch of its new space in Sunderland with the preview of its inaugural exhibition, The Homosexual Audacity, a bold and celebratory showcase of queer identity through printmaking, writing, and zine-making.

Featuring work by five creatives, the exhibition explores personal and collective experiences of queerness, offering a platform for voices often underrepresented in mainstream arts spaces. The Homosexual Audacity sets the tone for Harbour Printworks' mission—to inspire, empower, and connect with young people through creative expression rooted in community and identity.

Opening at Port Independent, this public exhibition marks the beginning of a new chapter for queer-led creative projects in the North East. Harbour Printworks seeks to foster a safe and inclusive environment where young LGBTQIA+ individuals can see themselves reflected in the art around them.

The project draws on the rich legacy of queer publishing—from early 20th-century journals like Der Eigene to the radical DIY zine culture of the 1970s–90s—honouring printmaking as a historically vital tool of queer resistance, expression, and visibility.

Through commissioned works exploring themes of identity, resilience, and belonging, the exhibition affirms print’s power to tell stories, build communities, and spark joy and pride in the face of adversity.

The Homosexual Audacity invites audiences to witness and celebrate queer creativity, and to engage with print as a living, accessible medium for liberation and connection.

Mark Bletcher (b.1995, UK) lives and works in Newcastle Upon Tyne. He received his BA in Fine art from Newcastle University (2019). He received the Elizabeth Greenshields Award (2023-4) and received the Gwen May Award from the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (2020). Notably, he has exhibited for the North East Open Call (2024), OHSH Projects (2023), Northern Print (2023), Newcastle Contemporary (2022) and Gallagher and Turner (2022). Bletcher’s work uses the visual language of modern magical realism to explore ideas around identity, narrative, and perception. 

Canto 34 (2025) is a mixed-media work by Mark Bletcher, inspired by Robert Rauschenberg’s Dante’s Inferno lithographs and his solvent transfer techniques. Drawing on Rauschenberg’s legacy as a queer artist, Bletcher uses collage, hand-drawn elements, coloured pencil, and transfer prints to develop a new visual language. Commissioned by Harbour Printworks through Arts Council England, the piece begins at the final canto of Dante’s Inferno—where Dante and Virgil pass Satan and begin their ascent toward Purgatory—and reimagines the narrative in reverse, casting the two as lovers returning to the dark and mysterious forest found at the beginning of the Divine Comedy.

In Bletcher’s usual style, the work is dreamy, difficult to read, and puzzle-like—drawing on the coded visual languages used by 20th-century queer artists. Areas of destruction and open space within the image hint at what might have been lost, altered, or left unsaid due to the constraints of identity and the limits of language itself.

Bletcher’s recent work explores the role of myth in shaping our identity. Inspired by a contemporary engagement with historical fragmented texts, including popular examples like The Iliad, the artist invites us to wonder what might be lost, obscured, or transformed by our limited understanding of the past and how these stories can be retold through a modern perspective. The work is informed by research of modern literature as well as queer art and social history.

Bletcher is a proponent of the arts and a supporter of social causes. In 2020, Bletcher co-founded MinutesOn, a project that builds community through conversations with artists, and in 2025 Bletcher founded Creative Workshops NE CIC, a North East-based community project that enables people to access arts activities with positive well-being outcomes. He works with various organisations to provide participatory workshops or develop their program on a freelance basis, including NAC, Equal Arts, Newcastle University, The Farrell Center, and many more. 

Bletcher's interests in contemporary social issues include LGBTQ+ identity, mental health, neurodiversity, arts education, and fair pay and provisions for artists. These interests come from lived experience; Bletcher is a queer, neurodivergent artist with an understanding of mental health. 


Will Hughes (They/Them) work deals with concepts of aspiration, queerness and glamour. Glamour is a spell which is cast, a blur, it is transformative and seductive they believe, 'You can be too boring, but you can never be too seductive.' Donatella Versace tells us. They are interested in how the recreation of form through casting, layering and bejewelling affects an object's cultural capital. They use lyrics as titles to reference pop culture and obscure contexts, social and material histories to weave personal narratives which simmer below a veil of glossy, shiny surface.

Will Hughes was born in Leicester, England in 1993 and is based in Stockton-on-Tees. They graduated from a BA in Fine Art from Bath Spa University in 2018 and was awarded the Kenneth Armitage Foundation Graduate Award. Following a year's studio fellowship at spike island in Bristol, Will moved to the North east in 2019 to study an MFA at the BxNU institute (Baltic and Northumbria University). In 2021 Will was artist in residence at BB15 in Linz, Austria and in 2024 was artist in residence at Lightpool festival in Blackpool. Career highlights include being selected for the YSI Sculpture Network 2022 and in 2023 was a Nominated Recipient of the Henry Moore Foundation Artist Award. Solo exhibitions include 'La La La, La La La La La, La La La, La La La La La’ at Abingdon Studios Project Space, Blackpool in 2023 and ‘Marea' at GS Artists, Swansea in 2021. In 2025 they have been selected as Tees Valley Visual Artist of the Year and will receive a living wage as well as career development support.

"For Harbour I have made a screen printed T-shirt with a plastic bag motif on it. I have been exploring and interrogating the plastic bag in my work for some time, thinking back to trips to the corner shop and the goodies inside, simple moments of joy in a working class estate. I have also been working on some tote bags and works on paper with assemblage to accompany the T-shirt drop. Having the support of Harbour to try new techniques and to give me space to be creative has opened up new avenues for me, I’ve just had fun trying new techniques. I've always wanted to make a run of T-shirts and now that dream has been realized. This facility will be somewhere I can work again and again, allowing artists access to workshops beyond the barriers of education. I.m excited to see what comes next. "

Ella Crimson is an illustrator and designer based in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.

They are particularly passionate about combining traditional craft and storytelling with digital tools and contemporary perspectives.

In addition to their creative practice, Ella is an educator and part-time lecturer at the Northern School of Art.

Silence

Silkscreen monoprint, linocut

2025

Ella 'Red' Crimson is a multidisciplinary creative living and working in Newcastle Upon Tyne. They are particularly passionate about combining traditional craft and storytelling with digital tools and contemporary perspectives. They are also an educator and part-time lecturer at Northern School of Art.

Silence is a two layer print depicting the character of the same name from the 13th century tale, Roman De Silence by otherwise unknown author Heldis of Cornwall, which was rediscovered in a box of other papers labelled "Unimportant Documents" in 1911 in Wallaton Hall in Nottingham. Silence is born female, but is raised male because a recent law means that women cannot inherit. 

In this medieval text, Silence's pronouns immediately switch from she/her to he/him, which is fully accepted by both the author and audience. Foe medieval people, gender was understood from both a biological perspective, but also a societal one; the choices a person makes in terms of pronouns, dress, vocation, action and deeds are just as important in understanding a person's gender identity as their biological sex. 

In the text, Silence discusses their gender identity with allegorical spirits of Nature and Nurture, who fight over their ownership of Silence. Nature claims to have used all their effort to choose the finest mould and clay, and the perfect amounts of white and pink to create the most beautiful woman. Whereas Nurture hints at Silence's talent and prowess as a knight and minstrel, and the noble station that comes with this, to ensure Silence continues to live as a man.

Crimson uses silkscreen monoprint with a paper stencil for the Nature layer in varying amounts of white and pink ink, with each mark made as if placed there personally by Nature. On the other hand, Crimson uses linocut to represent the effort required to construct Silence's identity by Nurture. The incredibly fragile 20gsm paper gives only glimpses at the shape of Silence's physical body underneath. 

As a gender non-conforming creative, Crimson uses their personal experience to shed light on the effort and fragility of perceived gender identity. This interactive print work places the viewer in a delicate situation; do they choose to accept the immediate view of Silence as knight in armour, or do they wish to peer behind this carefully constructed but fragile layer to see Silence shaped only by Nature? 

The combining of modern and experimental printmaking techniques with historic and traditional methods blurs lines between contemporary and ancient; how do we distinguish what is progressive or regressive? How do we tell stories and share understanding between different times and communities? And how much do we leave behind or leave unsaid; in silence?

Sara Designs Art is a North-East England based artist specialising in Illustration and printmaking.

What if we could love without fear?

2025

In this print Sara focused on the barriers between queer relationships and the fear coming from society, family, religion and peer expectations. 

Two Halves

2025

Sara explores the idea of two people, personality and experiences co-existing and being brought together with love.

Queer Love

2025

In this print, non gendered pure love and affection is explored. She shows two people in an embrace with full support and nothing holding them back.

Graphic Designer | Illustrator

Sullivan Alenezi is a graphic designer and illustrator based in the North East of England. Their work is driven by a strong interest in activism through art and design, using creative expression as a tool for social impact and engagement.


"This installation is inspired by Audre Lorde’s poem 'The Black Unicorn' and is a celebration of her great life as a Black lesbian woman who advocated for equal rights unrelentingly.


The Black Unicorn runs through the frames, not out of fear, but out of anger and a longing for freedom—freedom for myself and for the people from the shackles that have held us back since our inception. The Black Unicorn is GREEDY, UNRELENTING, and NOT FREE."