Artist Statement

My practice is rooted in transformation - through play, pain, care, and surrender. I work primarily through the lens of BDSM and kink, not as aesthetic or subject matter, but as a framework for creation, collaboration, and deep relationality. BDSM was the first space where I felt truly seen and held, and it taught me how to co-create safety, intimacy, and meaning across all parts of my life. That lineage is central to how and why I make art.

I use performance, play, and ritual to explore the charged thresholds between violence and tenderness, dominance and submission, control and release. What makes something violent? What makes it tender? What happens when care looks like cruelty, or when pain becomes a site of transformation?

I prioritise collaborative work - I care about people, about process, about the unspoken or undiscovered textures between us. I’m drawn to shame, identity, the masks we build around the parts of ourselves that long to be seen, and the ones we wear to become vulnerable enough to be seen. As a neurodivergent artist, I often explore pain and endurance as a tool for presence - using physical intensity to access mindfulness, embodiment, and clarity.

In future work, I’m actively engaging more with my Palestinian identity - something I’ve historically kept at a distance. I want to shed light on the dark corners shaped by generational shame and trauma. I’m interested in liberation - not just politically, but somatically, relationally, spiritually. And I want to do that work with others.

Artist Bio

Cherry Velour is the alias of artist Hana Noelle.

Hana (she/her), also known as Cherry Velour, is a queer Palestinian-American performance artist based in Leeds, UK. Her work sits at the intersection of BDSM, neurodivergence, and emotionally radical care - using kink as a framework to explore intimacy, identity, and transformation.

Working across performance, collaboration, and facilitation, Hana creates spaces where vulnerability becomes a method of creation and co-regulation. Her practice draws from over a decade of experience as a kink educator, facilitator, and community organiser. She’s worked with grassroots collectives, experimental art spaces, and underground communities across the UK and internationally.

Whether through intense masochistic endurance performances, nerdy and practical community workshops, playful kinky clowning, or tender acts of care, Hana’s work asks: how can we use pain, power, and play to feel more alive, more connected, and more free? And what can we learn from those who already have?