Seventeen is well worth a visit on its twentieth anniversary, as you can see both a celebratory group show with many of the gallery’s artists, and Bex Massey’s solo exhibition ‘The Ágalma’. Massey’s paintings pull off a seductive double take. They draw the viewer in as attractively mysterious conjunctions of nostalgic items. At the same time, as she explained to me, each diptych-style work sets up internal echoes and incorporates a remarkable number of cultural, bodily and autobiographical references. That results in what the gallery describes as ‘relational pairs’ in which ‘the combination forms the start of a visual equation waiting to be balanced by you, the viewer’.
PCK: The show is called ‘Ágalma’. What’s that?
BM: It’s an ancient Greek word that applies to ritual offerings. Each painting is a votive in the hope of divine favour, so the exhibition acts as a prayer from me to the gods – in the hope of being granted favour in fertility.
You and your partner have been trying to become pregnant for some years – I recall that the paintings in your 2024 show, ‘My Deuce, My Double’, were all titled for potential sperm donors, so that ‘sperm plus egg’ was one way of reading their two part structures. How is that going?
Yes, it’s been a three-year journey due to the cost, waiting times and bureaucratic red tape which surrounds same sex fertility within the NHS. We finally tried an IVF cycle a few months ago and it was not successful. We have since found out that our ages now probably preclude this route to motherhood. We are heartbroken and I was worried that installing the show now might be another wrench. I sat in the space for ages after we had finished installing the work and if anything it has made me feel a bit better. I find it very peaceful.
Appropriately to seeking to have a child, then, the paintings in ‘Ágalma’ take you back to your own childhood?
Yes, the votives in the show are what I would say are typical British 1990’s desserts…that is as with most of the best ‘British’ things – we have pinched and appropriated them from other countries and repackaged them as our own. Each dessert from my childhood is paired with something else I am reminded of from those days.
Bex Massey: Hera, 2025 – Oil on canvas, 120cm x 120cm. Photo by Damian Griffiths. Copyright Bex Massey, 2025. Courtesy of Seventeen, London.
Can we look at ‘Hera’ as an example?
This is a nod to my Nan’s trifle; I remember it fondly. Any custard she made had the thickest skin you ever saw. It really makes me want to eat it! I’ve modernised it slightly with blueberries as they balance the purples of the black patent heels which were a kind of teenage uniform almost. I had a pair just like these, even though I’m not really a high heel person.
Why is the title ‘Hera’?
Each painting is named after a Greek fertility god, and the imagery paired with the votive desserts contains allusions to their other notable characteristics. Hera is also goddess of women.
The pairings also incorporate contrasts of pressure. How does that work?
Where in physics the equation for pressure is ‘force over area’, in my paintings it is ‘force over ooze’. So, there will be one image of a force being put on something, and in the other its release. In Hera, the force is the lass walking, versus the ooze of the custard and cream.
And there are also visual links between the two images?
Yes… here there’s a negative shape between the legs that is exactly reflected in creamy white on the other side.
And bodily references?
I try and bring out the idea of female bodies, doubling them to suggest the duality of two women… In some paintings this is overt and in others more subtle.
Bex Massey: ‘Tychon’, 2025 – Oil on canvas, 120 x 140 cm. Photo by Damian Griffiths. Copyright Bex Massey, 2025. Courtesy of Seventeen, London.
That’s quite a performance to bring all those connections into play simultaneously! How do they operate in ‘Tychon’?
It is a fun conundrum trying to make both images reference each other when manipulating the imagery on canvas, for sure. ‘Tychon’ is god of chance and here combines pineapple upside-down cake and a goldfish in a bag that you might have won at a fair back in the day – I don’t think that happens now though, thankfully.
The goldfish eye mirrors the pineapple-encased cherries to a degree. Where the bag creases around the fish also mimics the striations on the pineapple rings and alludes to the space between the two largest and most eye-like pineapple slices. The force here is the water in the bag, which spills into most of the painting, and the ooze is formed by the juices coming out of the heated pineapple. When I sent my dad a WiP of this canvas, he was a little perturbed to see a bra and pants in the flattened jpeg, and I like that reference to bawdy seaside humour. When I tackle things which have the potential to be difficult, I try to introduce humour. I guess that’s typically British too: we can often be reluctant to talk about feelings or tough topics, so we offset both with dry humour.
Bex Massey: ‘Phanes’, 2025 – Oil on canvas, 50cm x 80cm. Photo by Damian Griffiths. Copyright Bex Massey, 2025. Courtesy of Seventeen, London.
The bubble and ice-cream painting is ‘Phanes’, a god I don’t know…
I hadn’t heard of him either until I researched this project. Phanes is god of light, so light comes through the bubble in refraction, and there is lightness in the bubble. The shape of the mint choc chip ice-cream melting echoes the bubble which has the force of gravity acting upon it. I do tend to use a lot of ice-cream – it’s such a great ooze.
Bex Massey: ‘Artemis’, 2025 – Oil on canvas, 120cm x 160cm. Photo by Damian Griffiths. Copyright Bex Massey, 2025. Courtesy of Seventeen, London.
One part of ‘Artemis’ looks abstract?
Yes, this one throws out the rule book to some extent, I felt the dogs needed to take up the majority of the canvas, as they’re like an eruption, you can almost hear the force of them barking. The ooze is a slither of blancmange. And blancmange is mega flat which leaves space for the eye to relax. Where I would usually take tones from each image and inlay them in the other, the pinks here are quite different. There’s more alizarin red in the dog and cadmium red in the blancmange to add extra tension.
Bex Massey: ‘Demeter I’ and ‘Demeter II’, 2025 – Oil on canvas, each 50cm x 40cm. Photo by Damian Griffiths. Copyright Bex Massey, 2025. Courtesy of Seventeen, London.
There are also some single image paintings?
Yes, so for example ‘Demeter I’ and ‘Demeter II’ there is an echo across a pair of paintings, rather than within one canvas. Demeter was the mother of Persephone who was abducted by Hades. Demeter – like so many of these ancient gods – was associated with fertility, namely through harvest and the fecundity of the seasons. Here I have paired her with a bullet as she is synonymous with death during the lament of her child. When her daughter was kept captive by Hades in the underworld she mourned, and man experienced winter and the dying of crops; and when reunited with Persephone she delighted, and spring and summer bloomed.
Bex Massey: ‘The Ágalma’, installation view. Photo by Damian Griffiths. Copyright Bex Massey, 2025. Courtesy of Seventeen, London.
Turning back to the show as a whole, where do your colours come from?
I mix my own black as it hits stronger and enables me to lean into a more purple ‘gray’. I’ve also been using a seven colour palette from my childhood. My favourite blue that I use potentially the most – the blue of the wall in my show – I’ve just realised, and am delighted, is Greggs’ blue. It is also the colour of our old kitchen. My parents were architects, and five of the colours in my palette were the colours of rooms in our house and the other two were my school uniform. This personal palette also means that when I take images from the Internet, I make them my own. It also creates further connections between all the paintings in the show.
And the show goes beyond painting?
The Ágalma ritual extends to smell and sound. There are two diffusers in the space pumping out something akin to CK1 – as that scent encompassed the 90s for me. With the help of my dear friend, Simon Rix, I have also made a new piece of music to accompany the show. The beat throughout stems from bird song, bells and me doing the breathing techniques associated with childbirth. The piece is a nod to 90s club classics – a dance anthem that never drops. Hopefully more relaxing than that sounds, though.
Do you mind if people don’t take in all those intricacies?
No, not at all. For me it’s autobiographical and therefore full of emotion, but lots of people won’t see more than paintings of slightly retro items. I’ve always used collage in my paintings, as I’m interested in the stories created by viewers via their responses to imagery and symbolism I’ve used. Because of that, I don’t worry that the show will come across as too personal, though I do hope that it feels hopeful, as despite our recent bad news that was always my intention.
Top Photo: Bex Massey with ‘Priapus’, 2025. Image Courtesy of Seventeen, London.
Bex Massey’s ‘The Ágalma’ is at Seventeen gallery, 12th September – 25th October 2025