Alma Berrow: What Slips Beneath the Sugar

Megan Mulrooney is pleased to present What Slips Beneath the Sugar, a solo exhibition by Alma Berrow. For the presentation, the traditional gallery layout is traded for a tablescape - a large oval table draped in a skirted tablecloth, embroidered in collaboration with Ellie Mac. The trompe l'oeil ceramics by Berrow gathered atop this table form an offering laid out for grazing and reflection. To either side, two ceramic "salad" wall sconces serve as candelabra, framing the scene. The gallery walls, painted a dusty 1970s orange, cast a warm glow over the room, transforming the "white cube" into an intimate dining room suspended in time - nostalgic, generous, and excessive.

Berrow’s practice has long centered on the table as both a physical structure and a metaphor for human connection. Drawing on the concept of dinatoire, a style of communal grazing that favors circulation over rigid seating, she treats her smaller works as parts of a whole rather than isolated objects. For Berrow, the table is not a neutral space, but rather is a stage for intimacy and ceremony, evoking the ancient tradition of breaking bread and the act of welcoming others into one’s private world.

What Sleeps Beneath the Sugar explores the tension hidden within domestic life: pleasure, care, and desire, alongside their darker and more uncomfortable counterparts. Inspired by her grandmother’s collection of cookbooks, Berrow reflects on the women in her family, the roles they performed and the ways they often disappeared within them.

The exhibition looks to the 1970s as a particular touchstone, an era where retro glamour met a hint of the grotesque. Berrow leans into this friction, creating works that are luscious yet uncanny. The result is a "fermented" ambivalence, a body of work that expresses gratitude for inherited knowledge while questioning the stifling expectations that often accompanied it.

By transforming the gallery into a communal tablescape, Berrow invites viewers to imagine themselves at the table. The works circulate like canapés at a party: individual yet interdependent, indulgent yet fleeting.

Alma Berrow (b. 1992; lives and works in Dorest) has a forthcoming exhibition with Megan Mulrooney. Solo exhibitions include, LAMB Gallery, London (2023) and Galeria Hilario Galguera, Mexico City. Group presentations include Cerámica Suro: A Story of Collaboration, Production, and Collecting in the Contemporary Arts at the Dallas Museum of Art (2023); Form: (Women) Makers at Sotheby’s, London (2023); In Real Life at Timothy Taylor, London (2021).