Leather Health

Leather Health draws from both internal and external modes of relating—within the self and within community—to explore the artist’s ongoing integration of identity. Rooted in BDSM practices across both the gay kink scene and the mixed-gender BDSM scene in the UK, the project emerges in the wake of rupture: a profound fracturing of narratival self that has led the artist in his pursuit of rediscovery & acceptance. This work is unapologetically grounded in his position as a Dom, a leather boy, an edge player, a performance artist, an activist, and a nonbinary, queer & neurodivergent survivor of complex trauma. 

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Bleeding into every surface of the project, turning goat hides into both a record and a framework for human connection, Leather Health interweaves BDSM and art as mediums for rebuilding self-understanding and unlearning shame in relationship to others—who are themselves also on their own journeys.

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Through this process, the artist engages with symbolic and visceral motifs stemming from his engagement with parts work, identity, compassion, surrender, trust, sacrifice, vices, virtues, community, and the body’s relationship to its environment. These themes are rendered on separate goat hides, each illustrated with current intimate scenes of BDSM & sex—depicting the artist's private play, power dynamics, and the friends and lovers who co-create these moments that shape the artist’s sense of community & understanding of self.

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Together, they form a raw and unflinching narrative of self-development. This process is sustained through relationships within kink communities—relationships built on trust, consent, courage, intimacy, values, and respect— the same principles forming the backbone of wellness & recovery.   

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Alongside this, Leather Health seeks to emphasise the importance of the spaces where we gather, play, and connect — spaces that feel sacred because they allow us to unmask our desires and recognise ourselves in the people around us. These venues offer shelter and empower us to show up proudly in identities that may not align with the conformity often imposed on us by life outside of BDSM & kink, where our willingness to dare to step outside of the norm may have us lose security of our very ability to exist in comfort. 

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By the end of 2026, Leather Health will culminate in the creation of a wall tapestry — stitched from all the collected hides — to then double as a fully functional fuck sling.

 

The project draws inspiration from the Leather Man tradition of well-worn, handed-down leathers shared within Leather families, aged by spit, cum, use, and love, as well as from artists like Keith Haring, whose work occupied public and communal spaces — challenging the exclusivity of institutionalised art that often alienated intersectionally oppressed audiences and complicated their ability to see themselves reflected in art & their ability to feel welcome in these spaces.

 

Leather Health’s commentary on the relationship between artist, art, and audience explores a disintegration of ego— the risk that an artist might lose sight of their roots and the reasons they began creating in the first place. This mirrors the artist’s own relationship with their practice as a Leather Dom and as a member of their community, in acknowledging where they started, their progress, and where they are now, which feeds back into providing a space to others who are his peers & equals, as they explore their own path. 

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This piece will travel across the UK, touring cruising bars, darkrooms, saunas, and BDSM and sex venues, where it will be used and engaged with by the community.

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Debuting Leather Health in its final form before the artist lets go of his work as it tours the country, the artist shall invite the audience to fuck him on the sling for one night (Venue to be confirmed) as part of an interactive performance.