Drawing: Bryony Kimmings in Sex Idiot

Bryony Kimmings

Award winning British performance artist Bryony Kimmings also includes ‘activist, writer, Feminist, Comedian, Auntie and person’ to her Twitter description. Her work is described as ‘haphazard, loud, dangerous, unpredictable and mega fun’.

“It is an artist’s duty to say and explore the things that are untouchable or hard to talk about.” Bryony uses a combination of music, dance, story-telling, video, comedy and the autobiographical narrative, inspired by taboos and anomalies of British culture.

She gained notoriety as a solo artist with Sex Idiot in 2010 – a funny and unapologetic account of the female sexuality in the 21st century. For the show’s finale Bryony requests audience members to donate some of their pubic, which she sticks together to form a moustache for one of her songs.

7 Day Drunk is a collaboration with a team of scientists to analyse the impact of alcohol on her creativity. In a studio-based experiment a GP, a psychologist and a neuroscientist monitored her alcohol levels over a week, while she created art and performances. For the live shows she performs and creates artwork sober then compares them to footage of the experiment and asks the audience to rate the results.

“I feel I am a better artist when drunk or hungover,” she said, which is not uncommon to creative people, given the centuries of artistic achievement of influential work under the influence.

Last year she performed Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model at the Soho Theatre with her mini-me, 9 year old niece Taylor, who faces a barrage of stereotypical princesses and pop stars in a desperate need of a role model to guide her through the expectations and confusions of womanhood.

She reprised Sex Idiot for one week only this month as part of The Festival of Love at London’s Southbank Centre. “I promise this is the last time in the UK until I do it at my own funeral,” she commented. I left this sketch at the venue and she returned it signed with a nice dedication.

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