Mary-Ann Stevens
Mary-Ann moved to Scarborough in 2021 after completing her MA at Chelsea Art College. Mary-Ann has a studio at the Old Parcels Office Artspace. Her work has an edgy, semi-autobiographical narrative, which explores identity and the representation and social expectations of gender. It is characterised by off-beat humour which belies a sense of melancholy. Mary-Ann's work in a variety of media, including sculpture, painting and video. She is currently working primarily in sculpture. The crude, bumpy, construction of my papier-mâché sculptures displays a childlike playfulness. The quirky, grotesque characters she creates are odd and unconventional, with a vulnerability that engages the viewer.
Mary-Ann Stevens
Mary-Ann moved to Scarborough in 2021 after completing her MA at Chelsea Art College. Mary-Ann has a studio at the Old Parcels Office Artspace. Her work has an edgy, semi-autobiographical narrative, which explores identity and the representation and social expectations of gender. It is characterised by off-beat humour which belies a sense of melancholy. Mary-Ann's work in a variety of media, including sculpture, painting and video. She is currently working primarily in sculpture. The crude, bumpy, construction of my papier-mâché sculptures displays a childlike playfulness. The quirky, grotesque characters she creates are odd and unconventional, with a vulnerability that engages the viewer.
Ethel and the Rabbit (Waiting Time)
Mixed media
Full sculpture installation 165cm x
105cm x 30cm
Ethel and the Rabbit (Waiting Time) features an anxious older woman waiting at a bus stop, fearful of being late and accompanied by a white rabbit - a nod to Alice in Wonderland and a symbol of time slipping away. The rabbit acts as an externalisation of her anxiety: comic, surreal, and quietly unsettling.
Mary-Ann predominantly makes papier-mâché sculptures, attracted to its immediacy, expressiveness and physicality of the process. It is a way of thinking through making, instinctive and hands-on. The performative characters are often quirky, odd, and emotionally complex. They are personalities, each holding part of her own identity, emotions, and fears. With every detail — the stoop of her shoulders, the meticulously selected outfit from second-hand shops, the glasses perched on her nose, her shoes weighted with lead — the sculpture took on a life of its own. Ethel and the Rabbit is a meditation on waiting, worry, anxiety, and growing old. It reflects some of her own mental health challenges but invites shared recognition.
