Students at Goldsmiths College in London have criticised one of their lecturers, the artist Dawn Mellor, whom they say misled them as to her gender identity. Mellor, who teaches fine art, adopted a non-binary persona called ‘Tippy Rampage’. A letter sent from a senior colleague had asked students and staff to use Mellor’s new name and the pronouns they/them/their. Students say that after Mellor adopted her new name she became a popular teacher for those identifying as queer or trans. It has since emerged however that Tippy Rampage was invented as one of several fake personas for an art project, except Mellor continued the Tippy Rampage persona, which the artist describes in an interview as ‘toxic and unpleasant’, beyond the confines of the original painting and writing project.
The controversy has spread beyond college politics into a social media furore. An artist who goes by the name of Rodent posted on Twitter ‘The whole Dawn Mellor/Tippy Rampage mess is so gross on so many levels. Masquerading as a trans person to push a toxic stereotype, abusing the trust of trans students + using them as non-consenting research subjects is fucking WILD.’
Another wrote ‘Let me not even have to consider how the behaviour of Dawn Mellor may reflect on my own future opportunities in academia. Please. I was just starting to have hope that I might one day be a lecturer who can help provide a safe space for queer students.’
Mellor launched a book, Sirens, in London on Friday which, the blurb states maps ‘the protagonist’s shifting relationship to crime, gender, class and sexuality from multiple perspectives: as a child in Gamesley in the 70s, a lesbian performer in sex clubs in the mid 90s, an artist with and without gallery representation, and as a lecturer within an academic institution. These changes of position mix the language of a rally cry with an acerbic satire of the authorial voice and everyone they encounter.’
Reflecting on her work with Studio International last year, Mellor said ‘The characters are often developed during the painting process, where the application of paint allows for shifting positions to present themselves simultaneously.’
‘It is impossible for me to paint mainstream famous women without considering historical representations in terms of class, gender, race or sexuality. Some of the gender switching that occurs in the [2018 exhibition at Team Gallery, New York] Sirens seeks to disrupt assumptions about what the paintings are doing… my own position is not one of simplistic hostility towards how other people choose to self-identify in conditions where we are all performing identities, or have them applied to us. I have consumed an excessive amount of lectures on identity politics during the process of this book, and I find myself being persuaded by various points in different arguments.’
In an invitation to the launch, seen by The Tab, who originally broke the story, Mellor writes ‘The book was initially proposed several years ago in my job application form, for my role as lecturer in studio practice for the Fine Art BA and contains in full the presentation I gave for the job interview. The character Tippy Rampage, performed mostly onsite at Goldsmiths and on social media accounts, has contributed to some parts of the research.’
16 December 2019
