Steven Gee is a London-based artist, curator, and founding Director of Piccalilli. In 2013 he graduated with a BA from the University of East London and in 2015, an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art. In 2017 Steven subsequently co-founded the curatorial collective IKO (It’s Kind Of hard to explain) alongside Corey Bartle-Sanderson and Oliver Durcan, curating exhibition across London, Margate and Hastings. Collaborating with and commissioning early career artists and writers in the UK, they were interested in viewership and challenging how artworks and exhibitions can be engaged with through fabricated specific framing devices (literal and conceptual) to house the artworks. Their projects rejected the showroom model of presenting pre-made artwork in white rooms, working closely with project participants to collaborate and build projects in line with a collective goal. In 2022, Steven co-founded and is current Director of Piccalilli. An artist-led initiative and gallery, supporting early career and under-represented artists by providing them with a supportive framework to develop their practices with ambition and experimentation at the fore. Through cultivating a supportive environment and concept collaboration, piccalilli aims to bridge a dialogue between artists, audiences, community and place. Now based in South Bermondsey, Piccalilli is a permanent space based in the Penarth Centre. Following an ethos where the space and programme are centred around the engagement of commissioned artworks, within a specific environment which acknowledges the architecture rather than ignore. Invited artists are supported to research, develop and realise projects over a dedicated period of time - a space for rumination and fermentation. As an artist, Gee’s practice navigates the everyday and the absurd — he works across mixed media, sculpture, installation, painting, and recently bespoke jewellery, often incorporating unconventional materials like mayonnaise, teeth, energy drinks and everyday ephemera. His solo exhibitions — such as Sandwiched, Tasteful Thickness, and Every Time You Lick a Stamp, You’re Consuming 1/10th of a Calorie — reveal a playful yet probing engagement with consumer culture, digestion, materiality, and texture.
