Bonnington Centre

The Bonnington Cafe is pleased to announce a captivating new exhibition by artist Stella Chapman, showcasing a series of innovative prints. On view throughout March 2025, Stella’s exhibition explores the theme of metamorphosis, inviting viewers into a dreamlike world of creatures caught between forms.

Stella uses her craft to transform spontaneous, observational drawings and collages into highly considered works of art. Through her unique process, Chapman turns quick, playful creations into pieces that reflect both the transitory and the deliberate, offering a balance of whimsy and formality.

This series is inspired by two literary works that deeply resonated with the artist: Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and Fernanda Melchor’s Hurricane Season. Both works depict beings undergoing transformation, in states of flux that echo the fluidity and instability of existence itself. Stella’s prints capture this sense of transience and metamorphosis, drawing on her fascination with the creatures from these texts—beings that exist more in the realm of imagination than in reality.

The process behind these pieces is intentionally intuitive, almost accidental, reflecting the artist’s playful approach to art-making. By combining collage and print techniques, Stella manipulates and experiments with fragments of animals to create uncanny, fragmented forms that mirror the disjointed nature of the imagined creatures. Unlike mythological hybrids such as mermaids or centaurs, the beings depicted here are amorphous, undefined, and existing entirely in the realms of art and fiction.

Stella’s work also brings a fascinating juxtaposition of traditional and contemporary methods. By appropriating imagery from archival sources, editing and hybridising them, she revives these fragments through the timeless medium of print. This collision between the old and the new mirrors the tension present in the literary works that inspired the exhibition—the push and pull between the familiar and the surreal.

The opening night will be held on Monday, March 3rd from 6-9 PM, providing an opportunity to meet the artist and explore this stunning new body of work. The exhibition is free to the public and will be on display throughout the month of March when the cafe is open. Stella is kindly donating 20% of all sale to the Bonnington Community Centre and Cafe