In her second solo museum exhibition, Lucy Stevens presents a series of new works inspired by the mammal tooth collection at Creswell Crags in Nottinghamshire.

_{‘Reindeer Teeth’, courtesy of Lucy Stevens}

Based in Leicester, Lucy’s work explores our relationship to the natural world, often drawing inspiration from ornithology, museum collections and her own experiences in nature. She has developed a practice using colour coded mixed media, photography, sound, sculpture and installation to interpret the natural environment. She often interprets species colouring, pattern, habitat, behaviour and vocalisations into vibrant portraits, colour charts and abstracts.Lucy was awarded a solo show at Creswell Crags for her artwork ‘Rainbow Lorikeet (Golden Sun)’ as part of The Harley Gallery Open 2024.

The award presented a rare opportunity to explore the collection, working alongside curator Angharad Jones. Lucy chose to work with a selection of mammal teeth, which she extensively researched to learn more about each species’ habitat and lifestyle to inspire a new body of artwork using acrylic paint, collage, pencil and wax pastel on canvas.

_{‘The Vole Clock’, courtesy of Lucy Stevens}

She selected mammal teeth from the collection at Creswell Crags due to their unique characteristics and links to both living and extinct mammals. The new work is an interpretation of the mammal teeth collection housed at Creswell Crags, including teeth found on-site at Pin Hole and Robin Hood Cave. Lucy has selected some well-known mammals from the collection of nearly 38,000 objects including reindeer, wolf, horse, bear, hyaena and vole, along with extinct mammals like the woolly rhino and woolly mammoth.

This collection of new paintings uses mixed media to explore colour coding techniques to identify and interpret mammal teeth by looking at the number of different teeth each species has, including, canine, incisor, molar and premolar teeth.  In some of the paintings, the shape of teeth are used to showcase groups of mammals feeding, hunting or migrating, or stacked to form totems or boundaries between symbolic imagery of eyes and moons, representing the idea of protection, magic, change and the cycle of life.

_{Top: woolly rhino tooth from the Cresswell Crags collection. Bottom: ‘Wolf Teeth’, courtesy of Lucy Stevens}

‘Teeth’ is on display at Creswell Crags until June 2026. Find visiting information here.