Rebecca Stevenson in Gods & Mortals

On Friday night I went along to the private view of a new exhibition, Gods & Mortals at the Cookhouse Studio in Chelsea College of Art and design. The show featured the work of Richard Slatter, Catherine Maffioletti, Sally Tiffin Rob Cezar and Rebecca Stevenson. It was Rebecca who's work I was really there to see. I have been in Love with her work for a few years now. I first met Rebecca through my university, when she had come to talk and even run tutorials. Now, one of my university friends is going to be working for her, which is how I found out about the show.

It was apparently the second sculpture show to be held in the Cookhouse Studio, I think that the exhibitions will be happening reasonably regularly from now on. I think it is great getting artists to come in and hold shows in universities, as a student I found this kind of thing very inspiring - especially as Rebecca was a former BA student at Chelsea.

Rebecca mixes the beautiful with the idea of 'bad taste' and a sickly sweet aesthetic that leaves the viewer unsure whether they should be repelled or drawn in. Looking almost like intricate cake decorations or sugar sculptures, Rebecca actually casts with wax and resin. There is a lightness and delicateness about the work yet an opulence that plays on our ideas of desire and consumption. The glossy fruits encased within the open cavities Rebecca creates look good enough to eat, yet have a sinister air, like the poison apples in Disney's Snow White.
In Gods and Mortals Rebecca showed two of her Swan sculptures, each sitting incased in a glass case, they were at once beautiful yet absurd and leaving a definite, disturbing saccharine aftertaste.


It felt great to be entering back into the exciting world of art and private views. Since I finished my degree I have fallen out of touch slightly with this scene. Now I am feeling refreshed and rearing to go - all set to try and see as much art as possible, always with the obligatory glass of private view free wine in hand!

All images from Rebecca Stevenson's website. Images © Anders Sune Berg.

Gods and Mortals at the Cookhouse Studio in Chelsea College of Art and design is open between Monday 21 – Friday 25 September 2009.
For more information visit the Chelsea website.

An Introduction.

Welcome to my new art blog. I have been blogging for a while, trying to cover the whole range of my interests, well, mainly art and fashion (my second love), on my blog A Sense Sublime. However I noticed that the blog was moving more and more towards fashion and having a blog divided by two subjects doesn't really work. So I have decided to start this shiny new art blog.

I have recently finished my degree. I graduated from Kingston University with a first class degree in Fine Art. After the comfort of university life, finishing felt like being spat out. Suddenly I was alone, without the support network of my tutors, the studio and seeing friends everyday. Unemployment was depressing and in the month following I applied for just about every job under the sun, both arty and non-arty. In the end it turns out I am not qualified yet to work in a arts job - if I want to get paid that is. I cannot afford to intern, I have London rent to pay and it doesn't come cheap. So I am working part time in a lovely little shop in Hampstead and trying to utilise my free time for the pursuit of art.

With this blog I hope to document what is going on in the London art scene at the moment, review shows that I go to, share my thoughts and experiences. I hope that you will find it interesting.

By way of an introduction, I am going to post some photos of my degree show work; a mixed media installation called Charm'd By Secret Spell.
Here you go:


So, welcome to With Quietness And Beauty, my new art blog.

Best Wishes,
Christina Sanders