Pharma's Market: Cleo Mussi

About

Pharma's Market is a unique contemporary take on the traditional rural livestock & produce show, conceived and produced by mosaic artist Cleo Mussi. Cleo uses colourful fragments of vintage and recycled china, glass and ceramics to make extraordinary sparkling hybrid figures imbued with a cheeky surreal sense of humour. The show is a culmination of the artist's two-year research project into the contrasting imagery of historical and contemporary farming. Pharma's Market makes visual connections between established notions about food, agriculture & animal husbandry by contrasting these ideas with more recent developments in stem cell research and genetic modification. The setting of the exhibition appears to be a traditional rural agricultural fair but, once they have entered Cleo's quirky world, visitors are greeted by new and intriguing characters which range from life-sized ‘robo-rabbits' to space scientists and bucolic farmers with a distinctly contemporary twist, all jostling for a part in the busy, thought provoking narrative.