Rebecca Stevenson - Selected Works

selected works
exhibitions

'Dead Nature' takes as its title a literal translation of the French phrase for 'Still Life'. The inverted hare references the tradition of depicting hanging game within the Still Life tradition, and the roses and berries in the back of the piece also allude to this. The object appears to be in a liminal or transitional state between life and death, animal and mineral, organism and artifice. The rendering of the subject into aluminium lends the work a particular coldness.

'Coralline' also references the Still Life tradition, but here the colour and material lend the work a much more visceral quality. A large open wound in the back of the subject blooms with crystals, flowers, fruit and more ambiguous forms that suggest corals or tissues. The boundary between flesh and non-flesh, animal and non-animal, is rendered fluid. The act of reproducing, arranging and manipulating natural objects is abusurd and perverse, as is the hare's inverted pose, and recalls the placement of bizarre natural objects alongside body parts and objets d'art in the historical wunderkammmer.