Rebecca Mason is a UK based artist using light to convey the darkness within human life, existence and emotion. Exhibiting widely in London since early 2013, her detailed and distinctive quasi poetic creations have been described as "an extraordinary mix of truth and beauty through which she is able to engage her audience with brutal observations about life, love, money and culture using her honest, and often humorous, interpretation of the modern world". Rebecca divides her time between the UK's capital city and Folkestone on the Kent coast, where she moved from East London in mid 2016 and has since set up her own glass bending studio.
Rebecca had firmly established herself on the London neon art scene by mid 2015 having released over 40 artworks incorporating neon (or argon - most of the lights use argon) in the 2.5 years prior. By 2018 Rebecca had created over 70 different pieces.
Rebecca’s work is a distinctive style, often incorporating typed text backgrounds upon which sit a neon or argon filled glass word or phrase in her own handwriting, always separate letters (never cursive joined up text). These backgrounds cover different takes and elements on the the overall theme (as captured by the light itself) and are occasionally accompanied by relevant imagery. The background text is written by Rebecca herself (bar a couple of pieces incorporating short lyrics or quotes, copyright always covered where needed) meaning she spends a long time coming up with content, analysis and angles on a theme.
T H E M E S
Using the brushes of neon and text to create a gritty and simultaneously delicate world, Rebecca draws inspiration from the exciting, chaotic playground of London. Musing on her life experiences, mistakes, feelings, events of the wider world and politics, her work focuses on day to day realities of human existence.
In essence, Rebecca's work encompasses themes of inequality, fear, envy, misinformation, disinformation, hypocrisy, imperfection, prejudice, blame, judgment, assumptions, truth, acceptance, power, control, chaos and wilful oblivion. Rather than a purely negative commentary on society, Rebecca sees her work as a representation of "truth" about our human behaviour. Such content includes the realities we may need to accept and face in order to attempt to address/fix our individual and collective problems. She often deploys self deprecating humour and wit to convey her message/discussion points, along with meta elements carefully included within a piece (e.g. flaws in her "flaws" neon, deliberate errors in "error", a background that is slightly mirrored but not clear in "fake" aka "going up in smoke and mirrors" etc).
B A C K G R O U N D
Born in 1980 in a working class area of the Midlands, Rebecca did not follow an art school path. She obtained a BA and MA in Economics from the University of Cambridge, before going on to work for 15 years in various regulatory roles in the City of London, focusing on the rules and moral obligations and practices of large global financial institutions. Many of the themes she saw and experiences she had during these times are present in the works she has produced.
G A L L E R Y S P A C E
At the start of 2017, Rebecca also established Sentient, a gallery of her own work and that of her favourite U.K. based artists. From Jan 2017 - end Feb 2020, Sentient was located in Folkestone’s Old High Street. Rebecca is currently on a break from all things gallery but aims to bring back Sentient some day.
Unlike many artists exhibiting neon, Rebecca bends the glass herself for a large number of her neons (including all of the more recent 20+ pieces). She has built up this skill over a long period of extensive and expensive practice (and frustration, cuts and burns!). Many (especially all the newer pieces) of Rebecca’s neon works include only glass letters bent by her (but not filled with gas/electrodes welded on by her - this is still done for her). Historically, some pieces/words or parts of pieces/letters were bent and blown for her by one of the few master glass blowers in the South East, because she wasn’t at the time capable of executing those herself, or had to execute them in a hurry to meet a deadline. In some older cases too, the glass was made for her so that she could obtain copyright quickly - in some of these cases, she then personally later bent a copy herself and used that in a final, finished piece (though in others, the glass bent for her was used in the final artwork). Rebecca is very rare to be able to do glasswork herself.
Rebecca has always, from the very beginning, put all of her pieces together (drilling, mounting, etc etc).
From Rebecca: IMPORTANTLY, I now personally bend all letters in all pieces I release (bar electrodes/filling) and do not release new pieces unless all letters are my own bending work. In the case of breakages, I will often pass the task of the replacements onto a neon technician so I can focus on making new work/meeting other project deadlines. There are very few people in the UK who can blow and bend their own glass (I know of only four women, for example) and the skill achieved by the guys who have done some of my glass in the past is amazing and should be recognised. Having spent many thousands of pounds and thousands of hours learning glass bending myself, I am still years off being as good as those with several decades under their belts, though I am pleased to be one of the very few artists in the UK who can bend their own glass and who has done so for a large number of their own artworks.
