Big Love Show: George Storm Fletcher – Interview

‘The Big Love Show’. Image Credit: George Storm Fletcher.

Artist, writer and self-described “menace”, George Storm Fletcher is a well known name in the Leeds art scene. Their latest exhibition, ‘The Big Love Project’, curated in collaboration with Hyde Park Art Club, is available to view at Hyde Park Book Club from 14th February to 14th April, with a special launch event this Sunday 15th February. George Storm spoke with TSOTA about love, people and learning in a project built on many voices. 

The exhibition brings together ‘The Big Love Show’ and the ‘The Big Love Book’, uniting the work of 80 artists carefully selected by George Storm, Holly Grange and the Hyde Park Art Club team. The show spans drawings, prints, photography, poetry, sculpture and prose. Originally, the project was intended to showcase just 14 artists on the walls of Hyde Park Book Club, but that number quickly doubled as the team sought to include as many perspectives as possible in order to explore an expanded meaning of love and loving in the present moment. 

The result is a powerful and generous showcase, with inclusivity at its heart. It offers offers Leeds warmth, creativity and a reminder of the community spirit that defines the city.

‘The Big Love Show.’ Image Credit: George Storm Fletcher.

Describing the exhibition, George Storm calls it “icky but cool.” Each piece feels raw and honest, often sharing work not typically shown to the public. George Storm is conscious that a project of this scale holds many different stories and interpretations of love, and therefore invites many different reactions. Rather than dictating a message, their aim was simply to create something “jolly that is naff in a good way.”

“I cannot force someone to feel something because everyone is different and everyone’s perception of art is different,” they explain. “But if I can get one person to remember a piece of art from the project, or for a piece to spark a memory for someone, then I’ll feel like I have won the jackpot.” 

Hyde Park Book Club, George Storm says, is the perfect setting. As a community space that welcomes people across generations and backgrounds, it reflects the openness the exhibition hopes to embody.

But the exhibition is only part of ‘The Big Love Project’. Alongside it sits ‘The Big Love Book‘, which expands the project with a further fifty contributors across two-hundred pages of art, prose and poetry in all imaginable form. The book is available to purchase at Hyde Park Book Club and serves as an extension of the exhibition to keep and treasure these stories of love. 

‘The Big Love Show.’ Image Credit: George Storm Fletcher.

One highlight for George Storm is Milly Recci’s unique and deeply heartfelt piece about eggs. “She wrote about eggs so beautifully, George says, “explaining her art as a parallel between how we cook eggs and how we attract others.” The book becomes as much a document of history, literature and sociology as it is an art collection, capturing how people understand and express love in this particular moment.

While art will always be interpreted differently through different eyes, George Storm explains that, as both curator and artist, they were able to weave a subtle narrative through the book through its order and placement. “Order changes perspective,” they say. “For example, a piece that reflects grief wouldn’t blend well next to something erotic or sensual. Each piece’s story had to flow and fit in its place, without creating rigid blocks or categories.” Through this careful sequencing, readers are guided, gently, through the emotional shifts of the project, experiencing it as the artist intended.

The exhibition launches this weekend on Sunday 15th February at Hyde Park Book Club from 6pm. The evening will feature an artist’s talk with George Storm and the team, readings and live performances, followed by a Big Love Party with resident beauty DJ Subaru playing tunes in the Snug. It marks an exciting and fulfilling moment for George Storm . Not only will they see months of work come together, but their girlfriend (whose art features in the exhibition) and their mum, who has inspired much of their creative life, will be there to share the occasion. “They’re funny and tell a lot of stories,” George Storm says of their mum. “A lot of my art is based on stories told by people, so it makes sense why she has inspired a lot of my work.”

‘The Big Love Show.’ Image Credit: George Storm Fletcher.

While George Storm has curated before, this project pushed them further. With the help of Aiden Winterburn, they learned to create graphics for the project, developing digital skills that will shape their future practice. With Matt Collins, they even learned to code, building a lightbox that flashes and shifts colour every two minutes. “Things happen in Leeds and people try to make things happen for you,” George Storm reflects gratefully.

Describing themselves as “impulsive,” George Storm creates work because it feels necessary, because something needs to be said, shared or held up to the light. The artworks in ‘The Big Love Show’ do not require long explanations; their emotions speak clearly enough. In bringing together so many voices, George Storm hasn’t tried to define love. Instead, they have created space for it: messy, sentimental, joyful, uncomfortable and sincere. In a time when cynicism can feel easier than tenderness, ‘The Big Love Project’ chooses openness. And in doing so, it reminds Leeds that love, in all its forms, is still worth gathering for.

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‘The Big Love Show’ runs from 14 February to 14 April 2026. To learn more, visit The Big Love Show — Hyde Park Book Club. To order ‘The Big Love Book’, visit BIG LOVE BOOK — Hyde Park Book Club.