Molly Sturge’s artistic practice flirts between the sacred and the profane, the personal and the collective. Through painting, installation, and a layered symbolic vocabulary, her work examines how meaning—particularly spiritual meaning—shifts, fractures, and is repackaged in contemporary culture. Drawing on religious imagery, pop iconography, and kitsch aesthetics, Sturge interrogates what happens when belief is commodified and when cultural memory is filtered through mass production.

Her process begins with research: a wide-ranging gathering of texts, images, and found objects. From theological treatises to feminist theory, flea markets to eBay listings, Sturge seeks out materials that hover between the reverent and the absurd. These fragments are assembled in preliminary collages and drawings, which become the foundation for her paintings and sculptural works. 

A recurring motif in Sturge’s work is the apple, a potent symbol. Referencing religious narratives, folklore, and pop culture, the apple in her practice becomes a site of tension—between desire and guilt, sweetness and consequence. It reflects broader themes within her work, particularly around intimacy, vulnerability, and inherited cultural scripts tied to femininity.

This exhibition marks a notable expansion of Sturge’s visual language through a new three-dimensional installation in the form of a vending machine. Initially conceived as a painting, the piece evolved into a sculptural object—constructed from wood and standing at nearly two meters tall. The vending machine, with its associations of automation, impulse, and consumption, becomes a provocative metaphor when filled with religious kitsch: plastic saints, glowing crosses, mass-produced devotional objects. By recontextualizing these items, Sturge invites viewers to consider how sacred symbols are rebranded and reinserted into capitalist systems.

Though materially distinct, the installation, along with the surrounding paintings, continues her exploration of memory, symbolism, shame, and the cultural residues of belief. Working between personal narrative and shared iconography, Sturge offers space for humor, critique, and reflection—asking not only what we worship, but how, and why. Unlike the fixed gaze of a painting, the three-dimensional form requires movement as it recalls the architecture of religious altars, yet functions as a satirical site of transaction.