Bio & Artwork Information
Chester Tenneson (b.1980, Liverpool, UK) lives and works in Manchester, UK. He studied at Manchester School of Art, completing BA Interactive Arts in 2002 and MA Fine Art in 2004. Recent exhibitions include '(Un)Defining Queer', Whitworth, Manchester; 'Queer Art(ists) Now', Space Station Sixty-Five, London; ‘Funny People: Art and Humour by artists and comedians’, the Lowry, Salford. He was awarded the PIVOT grant by Castlefield Gallery and Bluecoat in 2020, which included mentorship by Ryan Gander. He co-curates the project ‘Queer Painting’ with artist Katie Tomlinson which explores Queer approaches to contemporary painting.
Chester’s practice is conceptually led by language, with outputs in painting, performance and sculpture. Recent work focusses on text-based paintings which utilise typography, language, abstraction and bold colour as central visual elements, with written description creating a tension between word and image. The text included in the paintings appropriates existing language from institutional or commercial contexts such as news headlines, social media posts and marketing. These short fragments of language feel incomplete or ambiguous - the artwork operates through absence and implication exposing the absurdity / banality of institutional rules, norms or behaviour. Humour is often used to reveal the hidden assumptions and power structures embedded in everyday language. Absurd cis-heteronormative structures are regularly revisited, informed by Tenneson’s perspective as a transgender man.
RECENT EXHIBITIONS, PUBLICATIONS, CATALOGUES:
2026
Just Browsing, Bluecoat Liverpool
2024
(Un)Defining Queer: Queering the Constituent Museum, Exhibition Catalogue. Edited by Imogen Holmes-Roe, Dominic Bilton & Victoria Hartley
Archives at Play, Publication by Thomas Dukes.
2023
(Un)Defining Queer, The Whitworth, Manchester
WINK WINK, The Whitaker, Rossendale
Questioning the Form, Transcribing the poetry of Gloria Kiconco, Manchester Poetry Library
2022
Queer Art(ists) Now 2022,Space Station Sixty-Five, London
Archives at Play, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester
Fayre Share Fayre, The Whitworth, Manchester
ARTICLES / INTERVIEWS:
This is tomorrow, Text by Sean Burns
Bluecoat Transgender Awareness Week 2021,Artist in Focus Interview
AWARD:
2020 - 2022
PIVOT, Bluecoat & Castlefield Gallery. Mentorship from Ryan Gander.
PERFORMANCE LECTURE:
Labels & Fables; A Trans History of Artwork by Chester Tenneson (2020)
Commissioned by Trans Creative, released as part of Trans Vegas Festival 2020. This short video is a retrospective of artworks made, reflecting through a trans lens.