Lucy Sparrow's Erotic Emporium

Lucy Sparrow is a contemporary artist from Bath, England working primarily with felt. She creates intricate objects by sewing together brightly coloured pieces of felt, stuffing them like miniature pillows, and hand painting them with tiny details. Sparrow’s oeuvre is playful, her objects are relatable, and their felt composition challenge the ever-expanding boundaries between fine art and craft. Her pieces evoke a surreal sense of nostalgia and curiosity. Sparrow cites a fascination with “things made out of materials they weren’t supposed to be made from” as inspiration for her work, which takes many forms: from bubblegum to prescription drugs, and now sex objects such as butt plugs and vibrators. As such, Lucy Sparrow’s Erotic Emporium: Le Sex Shop Feutré will include all manners of sex-related paraphernalia. In Britain, laws on pornography are becoming increasingly severe, with the prohibition of depictions of various sex acts. Lucy Sparrow seeks to challenge the rights of sex workers, fetishists and consumers of porn with the creation of a sex shop made from felt, testing the boundaries of legality in the representation of pornographic material.