Lindsey Mendick's new exhibition at Carl Freedman Gallery in Margate, titled "Where You End and I Begin," presents a visceral and unsettling portrait of romantic love. The ceramicist transforms her personal relationship with partner Guy Oliver and her pug Telly into a mangled mythology of co-dependency and desire. The show runs until 30 August.
Intimate and voyeuristic beginnings
The exhibition opens with grainy Polaroids capturing intimate moments between Mendick and Oliver: embracing, toes in mouths, naked bodies intertwined. The images are so full-frontal that viewers feel like voyeurs. Mendick then transitions into ceramics, depicting herself as the Virgin Mary on a vase with Telly as baby Jesus. Oliver's face appears on another vase with horns, evoking a satyr. The work blends folkloric and religious imagery, creating a personal mythology.
Ceramic body horror and hybrid forms
A table displays ceramic sex toys with organic, uterine shapes. Telly is encased in guts like a prenatal baby. Toothbrushes have two handles, and snails are shown snogging. The final room features ceramics of Mendick and Oliver's faces fused together, sharing a rib cage, a womb with kicking feet, and a heart with a hand around its valves. The white ceramics are displayed like medical specimens, reminiscent of a modern Dr Moreau creating a hybrid mutant of pure love.
Toxic edge and emotional vulnerability
Wall panels feature phrases such as "I'm simultaneously sick of you and can't live without you" and "Can you not see I'm drowning?" These reveal a toxic edge to the love depicted, as damaging as it is nurturing. Mendick explores the thin line between love and hate, toxic and healthy. The vases, with their crude aesthetics, are less impressive, but the overall show is deeply personal and emotionally exposed.
Influences and reception
The exhibition channels Tracey Emin's raw emotional vulnerability—both artists are friends and Margate residents—but pushes it into Cronenbergian body horror and millennial malaise. Critics describe it as Mendick's best work to date: funny, anxious, paranoid, surreal, and unashamedly personal. According to the review, it is a must-see for those interested in contemporary ceramic art and explorations of love.
