Belladonna Paloma is an artist & witch living in Shetland, UK. She paints, hand pokes tattoos, and writes poetry. Her work is into listening to faeries, how divination disturbs linear time, toilet gods, grief rituals and necromancy.
In 1995, Bella bought her first album on CD, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers 'One Hot Minute', at a record shop in Penzance. She listened to it once, and the next day exchanged it for a copy of 'Live Through This' by Hole. It was in this moment she knew she was trans.
She is currently working on a big computer game project with Uma Breakdown, called The Well of Shimmering Sickness, exploring holy wells and oracular storytelling. This is following on from their Surface of Scum collaboration (presented at MayFest and now permanently archived at HOAX Publication), which was a digital tool for unstable character creation.
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CV
Selected publications:
- Crossroads & Girldick, essay in TISSUE PAPER Magazine (upcoming)
- Painting featured in the publication, Responses to Untitled (eye with comet) by Paul Thek, published by Pilot Press (March 2023)
- Viscose Baby Girl Goo, essay and drawing published in Sticky Fingers Publication upcoming Masturbatory Reader (March 2023)
- Edict nailed to a tree, poem published as part of AMBIT: The MAGICK Issue (2023)
- Extract from Choose Ur Adventure Poem published in Folklore For Resistance (2023)
- 8 page painting, commissioned feature in Art Licks Magazine, Issue 27 (2022)
- There’s always Things Falling Out The Sky, a book length poem about Bigfoot, published by Pink Sands Studio (2021)
- From 2014 - 2019, alongside Tom Prater, Belladonna Paloma was the co-editor and director of Doggerland, an online and small-press print publication exploring artist-led culture in the UK. http://www.doggerland.info/review/
Selected exhibitions & performances:
- The Well of Sickness Shimmering, computer game collaboration with Uma Breakdown, commissioned by Bristol + Bath Creative R+D, online (launching March 2023)
- Bog-lore, solo exhibition at Display, Gaada, Shetland (Feb 2023)
- YOYI! Care, Repair, Heal, audio collaboration with Daniella Valz Gen, commissioned as part of group exhibition at Gropius Bau, Berlin (2022)
- DRIP, group show at Two Queens, Leicester (2022)
- Descent to Kilgrimol Rx, solo exhibition at Abingdon Studios, Blackpool (2022)
- Surface of Scum, collaboration with Uma Breakdown, commissioned by MayFest (2022), Bristol, and now permanently hosted online by hoaxpublication.org
- Poetry performance at Rights Night, Bristol Old Vic (2022)
- Poetry performance at Herstory Festival, Exeter (2022)
- Wet Ceridwen & The Skuzz Nymphs, text-based computer game, online commission (2021)
- Caraboo Projects, Bristol (2021)
- Performance with Cambridge Literary Review (2021)
- Commissioned installation (with Lucie Akerman), Radmin Festival, Bristol (2019)
- Stage design for Supernormal Festival, Oxfordshire (2019)
- Performance (with Oliver Sutherland), curated by Paul Purgas, Outpost, Norwich (2018)
- Performance (with Phil Owen), at Hauser & Wirth, Somerset (2017)
Residencies & Awards:
- Vital Capacities x Wysing Arts Centre Residency (2023)
- Workshop Bursary, Gaada, Shetland (2022)
- WORK/LEISURE Residency Abingdon Studios Project Space, Blackpool (2022)
- DYCP recipient, Arts Council England (2022)
- Scratch Lab Residency, Caraboo Projects, Bristol (2021)