MOLLY STEPHENSON

Naarm Melbourne / Artist 

Self-isolating
Stephenson creates sculptures, assemblages and installations that have been crafted through the lens of her shape-colour synaesthesia and from a neo-pagan perspective (for example European witchcraft, tarology and astrology). These operate as vehicles in her work to create spiritual thresholds and to pay homage to a future wonderland that is occultist, apocalyptic and eerie.

𓅔

I’m staring up at the sky, laying on my back, sheltered from the pulsating sun by a tree. As I take a closer look at the tree, I see something weighing down one of the branches. As I peer closer, it isn’t a flower or a growth, but a large, drooping, wet eyeball, weighing down the tree, the way a Christmas decoration pulls on its branches or the way a glowing lantern pulls and throbs. The iris of the eyeball is incandescent, sucking and absorbing the sunlight — an energy source, an essence. Much like a Venus fly trap, the eyeball suddenly is incased by the skin of a brown onion, acting as a protective, thin membrane for the eyeball. The skin of the onion then engulfs the eyeball, leaving only a thin veil of a silhouette to be seen.


(18/3/2020)