Plinth

‘For me, paintings naturally sit in a space between figuration and abstraction,’ Stephenson says. ‘Paint itself performs and plays the mechanisms of abstraction.’ In contrast with these more recent gauzy abstract works, her paintings from 2020 and 2021 are muddy and surreal. Throughout 2022 and 2023, the crops get tighter, the paint thinner and objects such as beds are stripped back to the bare bones of geometric shapes. ‘I think my work has shifted because I’ve allowed paint to have a louder voice in the studio.’

Hanging opposite the entrance, Red Route exemplifies the loose, dreamy tension of the suite of more recent works. Here, what could be a desire path through a field bends sharply to the left, leading to what could be a copse of trees rendered in paint as thin and dirty as fish tank algae. STOP-sign-esque, a rectangle of red paint frames the scene. It is just as well it demands attention in this way because the larger, neighbouring work could upstage it otherwise. This is Inflatable Home, a translucent cuboid shape floating in a field. With thin layers of paint, a lightness of touch for a light sensibility. Guy ropes appear to tether the square object down. ‘The tethering and architectural forms in my work act as an umbilical cord from the subconscious to the present, physical and conscious world,’ Stephenson explains. But they also reminded me of strings on a detective’s murder map. I picture these lines extending beyond the canvas, from wall to wall, from room to room, one idea connecting with the next.

You could draw a line, for instance, from Inflatable Home to Fertile Green, which likewise tops a colour field of green with a band of blue, this time a thin one. Whereas the former work presents a translucent structure, this one hallucinates an interior; recalling the invisible rooms of Francis Bacon, which often stage some kind of fight, screaming figure, or screamy fight, this room contains a wispy little cloud, as if by contrast. ‘All the works are an attempt to excavate memories and feelings. The thin layers allow things to reveal themselves more gradually and eventually depict a depth in which the form was buried,’ she says. ‘Painting them is intimate, and the speed in which they are made, in fact, reflects the nature in which they are realised. Either abrupt or slow and more cathartic, one of the most important factors of the works is the speed in which they are physically reckoned.’
From lingering clouds to jets of sunshine, and from invisible rooms to Delicate Structures in a Sunflower Field, which hangs adjacent to Fertile Green, we move from slow to fast. Radiating rows of yellow rush towards a vanishing point at the top of the canvas (where in Renaissance paintings you often find a heavenly break in the clouds). There is a laissez-faire attitude towards layering – some of these yellow orbs intersect the buildings (some don’t), lending the scene its latent ghostliness.

For all its wisps and phantom structures, the exhibition also presents far more grabbable objects, contrasting absence and presence, a game of now you see me, now you don’t. Rendered in Delicate Structures’ sunflowery palette is All the Hours, which resembles a carousel slide projector – another pun perhaps. Nearby, 5 Swings presents geometric, origami-esque architecture, while opposite hangs the fleshy coral Parent Shell, sitting on a small platform, the composition echoing some nearby chairs in the gallery on a small stage.

So far, so playful. Yet the title of one work Light Weight seems self-reproachful. Is all this lightness good for anything? Does this work lack substance or is it a cheap date? ‘I like to leave the works open for others to step into, however, titles can be a playful moment to direct the entry point into the work. I’m interested in the hierarchy of things in the painting. Giving the work a title that champions the colour, for example, over the forms, can make you interrogate it in a particular way.’ It takes deftness to paint lightness without frivolity, just as it does to live it. This delicate balance seems to be at the heart of Stephenson’s work, where each piece emerges from an internal world—one that, as she describes, ‘is continuously being fed and excavated in the studio.’

Mary! Go Round thrives on this sense of excavation—of memories, sensations, and fleeting images—while allowing paint itself to take the lead. The works hover between presence and absence, solidity and translucency, control and spontaneity, forming a loose network of associations that invites viewers to find their own way through. Just as her tethered forms and intersecting lines hint at unseen connections, the show as a whole feels like a carousel of ideas in motion—turning, shifting, and never quite settling in one place.

By Sammi Gale