Stevie Dix's paintings have the ability to "hiss and speak of forbidden temptations"

In the two short years since we last spoke to Belgium-born and now Suffolk-based Stevie Dix, the artist’s unconstrained works encouraging spontaneity have piqued the interest of both the art and design community. As a result, Stevie is currently exhibiting her largest solo show to date, The Devil’s In The Details, at L21 gallery in Mallorca.

The exhibition showcases the details of Stevie’s works by having little else in the gallery space to distract visitors. With its vast white walls and floor that almost curve into each other, the artist’s works immediately draw attention with their contrasting, darker colour palette. The painted motifs in Stevie’s individual paintings are dark too, with L21’s gallery assistant Esmeralda Gómez Galera pointing out the documentation of a snake in her work, “a symbol with such negative connotations in Christian tradition,” she says.

The representation of the “devil” within the show, as its title suggests, appears to be this snake motif, painted abstractly as a curving line that swoops across the width of Stevie’s canvases. “It’s the portrayal of sin according to the Genesis [referring to Genesis 3:1], but also a ‘sting’ of alluring curiosity and feminine audacity,” Esmeralda from L21 continues. “That sting is as quick as lightning, a jolt can have a similar effect to the one some of these paintings give. Now while the snake is the most recurrent one, there are other symbols in Stevie Dix’s paintings,” the gallery assistant says, also eluding to the artists use of “the silhouette of a black palm tree in the desert” for instance, or “the crescent moon unfolding.”

No matter the context of the work – whether you view the works in the gallery or online – you’ll get lost while inspecting Stevie’s paintings. “By getting lost in it, hidden things appear,” Esmeralda says, so if you’re not lucky enough to be in the warmer climes of Mallorca at the moment, get zooming on your screens to discover details “that if one observes and listens closely, hiss and speak of forbidden temptations.”