Emma Bentley Fox is a socially engaged, trauma-informed artist and facilitator based in Yorkshire. Their multidisciplinary practice is research-led, with each project shaped through exploration and collaboration. They often return to photography, particularly analogue techniques, to explore personal and institutional archives.
Bentley Fox’s practice centres on building meaningful connections, creating welcoming, supportive spaces where people can reflect, be vulnerable, and feel a sense of belonging. They use photography as a tool for documenting this connection, aiming to capture sparks of joy, intimacy, and authenticity.
Bentley Fox uses image-making as a way to build community. Through collaboration, they generate space for humour, healing, and collective care. Their practice uplifts voices that are often overlooked and explores themes of health, recovery, and wellbeing, imagining new and hopeful futures.
The artist was the recipient of the inaugural 2024 Patricia Sutcliffe residency, spending one month onsite at The Art House. This summer they return to present the outcomes and process with an immersive open studio event, Safelight. This sensory sound and light installation in The Art House’s Darkroom – alongside images and research created during their residency, explores the darkroom as a queer space for healing, intimacy, and transformation. Bentley Fox will invite visitors into a calming, reflective environment that celebrates stillness, vulnerability, and the quiet magic of image-making.
