“Food is a constant source of inspiration,” says the London-based artist Florence Houston. “I enjoy painting something seemingly unimportant with a great amount of reverence and drama.” For her latest exhibition, JUICY!, Houston has immortalised a series of still life jellies. “I was looking at the way Victorians used jellies as table decorations,” she says, “but my paintings are perhaps more a reference to the slightly brasher 70s jelly revival.” Nevertheless, the wobbly desserts are not her go-to treat. “I don’t find them appetising,” she says, explaining that by the end of a week’s painting they are rather worse for wear. “They’re just incredibly beautiful, absurd, fragile and comic.”
