Bio:
Chester Tenneson (b.1980, Liverpool, UK) lives and works in Manchester, UK based at Paradise Works studios. He graduated with a BA in Interactive Arts in 2002 and completed his MA in Fine Art in 2004 at Manchester School of Art. He is currently a Lecturer in Fine Art at Manchester School of Art, leading Fine Art practice within the Fine Art & Art History pathway. His research-led teaching focuses on Queer contemporary art and art history, with a focus on inclusive Queer pedagogy and belonging. He co-authors the research project Queer Painting with Lecturer and artist Katie Tomlinson.
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 paintings question the power and history of the medium of painting, with playful re-appropriations of art historical painterly strategies associated with machismo (color field painting, abstract expressionism), taxonomies of painting (scenes, portraits, landscapes, still lifes) and nods to conceptual painting history.
The text included in the paintings appropriates existing language from institutional or commercial contexts such as signage, government policy, medical manuals, advertising copy and social media posts. 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.
Performative elements are key to all of Chester’s work - language is used as a means to describe an action, a staging, a scene, a placement of objects or as an invitation to the viewer to participate in response an artwork.
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.