about the artist

Ariella Napoli is an emerging contemporary artist living and working on Kaurna Country, Adelaide. Ariella is a Co-Director of the artist-run initiative FELTspace, located on Compton Street in the Adelaide CBD. She graduated from the University of South Australia with a Bachelor of Contemporary Art and a Bachelor of Creative Art (Honors). Working across media, her work employs queer feminist methodologies that aim to celebrate sexual expression unbound by essentialist assumptions of the human experience. Ultimately, she seeks to bring pleasure to individuals who have been denied it or taught to deprive themselves of it for the benefit of others.​​​​​​​

She explores oppressive patriarchal systems and the policing of gender and sexual expression to better understand her internal dialogue around sex and identity. Informed by post-essentialist theories, and BDSM and feminist writers, Ariella is motivated by her internal struggle with feelings of submitting to the dominant influences around her. She reflects on how institutional ideologies, normalised representations of gender, and idealised ideas about sex, work to oppress free expression.