About

Bod Mellor is an artist based in London who creates paintings referencing iconic images of their famous subjects, often featuring graphic violence, verbal profanity and explicit sexuality. They have been exhibiting internationally since the 1990s and are included in the collections of Tate, Migros Museum, the Arts Council and the British Council. Recent exhibitions and commissions include Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Hamburg (2022), Brent Biennial, London (2020) and Studio Voltaire, London (2020). Their writing has been published in Frieze Magazine, TATE. and others. They have published three books: Sirens, Montez Press (2019); Michael Jackson and Other Men, Studio Voltaire (2014); and The Conspirators (2010).

Project

During their association with London Performance Studios, Mellor will research and develop BackstageBoo – a new play set in the Manchester home of an elderly pensioner who wakes up one day in the body of Judy Garland after attending an artist-run workshop with their middle-aged child. The child is a sculptor with storage problems who is moving themselves and their work back into the family home – a council house on a deteriorating housing estate. The play follows the two characters as they navigate a crumbling National Health Service together, exploring class subjectivity and subjugation in contemporary Britain through an absurdist lens.