Reed Rushes

Reed Rushes is a British/American multimedia performance artist living and working in Queens, New York. Described by Exeunt Magazine as “following in the lineage of queer performance” their work is concerned with queer identity and world building. Exploring myth and fable using a queer lens, Rushes unpacks power structures as they relate to capitalism, gender and climate chaos. In 2018 Rushes won “Man-Up London,” Europe’s largest Drag King competition. The Guardian described their drag persona as “brilliantly subverting extreme masculinity... so macho he ate raw steak on stage.” Since completing an MFA at Bard College (2022) Rushes has begun to revisit their early drag performance, merging it with their visual art practice. 

Most recently Rushes has been working with personas in collaboration with artist Kate Williams, performing as duo, EXULT. Through their persona’s EXULT taps into excess, over-saturation, power, and desire. As described by an audience member watching EXULT performances is “like doing an entire bottle of poppers in a bathtub full of money.” Sharing a nuanced sense of what it is like to exist in a place that prioritizes capitalism, hedonism, and complacency, they speak to the horrors and delights of being alive. They’ve shown their collaborations at raves, house parties and venues such as Performance Space New York, Rockaway Beach with The Locker Room Gallery, Dirty Magazine, Trans Pecos, and Chaos Computer.

Rushes’s art practice draws on their experience and training as an ensemble theatre maker. In 2011 they co-founded award-winning theatre company, The Wardrobe Ensemble whom they worked with for over eight years before leaving to focus on their visual art practice. With The Wardrobe Ensemble they devised and performed original play texts that toured to venues such as The National Theatre, Trafalgar Studios and Bristol Old Vic Theatre and they were dramaturg on their show 1972: The Future of Sex (**** Guardian) (****LGBTQ Arts Review).

Allowing their visual art practice to be informed by these collective collaborations and experimentations they have since worked with performance artists Monica Mirabile, Justin Cabrillos, Richard Kennedy, and My Barbarian in ensemble art pieces. With residencies and shows at Performance Space, HAU2 Berlin, NYU Skirball Centre, The Chocolate Factory and BOFFO Fire Island. In 2020 Rushes created and directed their largest queer ensemble collaboration to date, Sensitive Plumbing described by Exeunt magazine as “defying the boundaries of skin, enacting solidarity instead.” Sensitive Plumbing was commissioned by The Yard Theatre and made possible with support from Arts Council England through National Lottery Project Grants.

Reed has taught performance workshops in universities and schools across the UK and were a performance Teaching Fellow at Al-Quds Bard College, Palestine 2021.