Léa Mestres Family Business

To stand among Léa Mestres’ outsized sculptures is to journey through the looking glass and enter a world of the French artist’s colourful imagination. Her show Family Business is reminiscent of Carsten Holler’s rooms filled with giant mushrooms, or Nikki de Saint Phalle’s iconic Tarot Garden in Italy. Mestres draws from a wide range of popular culture, from the absolute pink of fashion designer Valentino to rapper Missy Elliot’s music videos, condensing this vivid imagery into the textured columns of her sculptures which also reference crépi, a rough concrete plaster ubiquitous across France and Europe. Highly research-driven, Mestres counters notions of ‘feminine art’, ignoring expectations, re-appropriating stereotypes and prioritising joy in her work at all costs. Named after friends of hers, Mestres’ three towering artworks Stacy, Suzy and Jessy are all personified as larger-than-life characters.