Mary Stephenson: Suddener Than we Fancy

This exhibition marks a radically new body of work for the artist. The sense of presence in her paintings, previously found in a recurring cast of characters, now emerges in subtler ways: inanimate objects, such as a set of swaddled cutlery or a drooping daffodil, take on the polyvalent resonances of personhood.Mary  Stephenson, who refers to these canvases as ‘pregnant spaces’, offers a mysterious, cinematic space for the unconscious to grow. Exploring this liminal place between physical and internal states with her distinctive, dark comedy, Stephenson’s highly saturated worlds move us from the familiar to the uncanny.