Semi Precious Stone Sculptures by Nevine Mahmoud.

Effeminate Form, 2017.

Cleave and Spread Peach, 2017.

Lips.

Bitte.

Dumb Tongue.

Still Life With Peach, 2016.

Toy Flower, 2017.

It is an art to take a material that is cold and inflexible, hard and uncompromising and make it bend to your will. Michelangelo managed to tame marble and stone but mostly mere mortals end up submitting to the will of the material. Think long, flat bench tops and metres of polished floors… marble simply held out for the long game – no bending this unyielding beast.

But once in a while someone has the capacity to lull the material, to seduce it into relenting, to make it malleable and fluid. Nevine Mahmoud is one such person. The London born designer lives and works in Los Angeles. Her life like pieces of marble, alabaster and calcite stone have been carved into fruit, flowers, lips and an enormous peach. The peach appears succulent and plush, almost juicy. There’s no getting away from it, her work is incredibly sensual, evoking emotions we attribute more to silk than to stone. Her alabaster lily appears to unfold and open to the sun. “Lilies are the most erotic flower,” she said.

Whilst Mahmoud is clearly capable of recreating the Garden of Eden, the way Michelangelo brought David into existence, she is not without a sense of humour. A thick, pale pink tongue pokes out cheekily, daring comment from passersby. They’re the type of pieces you just want to reach out and touch, just to make sure they feel cold, because everything else about them tells you they are anything but.

[Images courtesy of Nevine Mahmoud. Photography by Andrew Cannon and Jeff Mclane.]