“That space is just completely magic,” Charlotte Colbert says. “It feels like entering another world. Like it is a mistake.”
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing Fitzrovia Chapel firsthand, then you’ll already know what Colbert is talking about. Built in the early 1890s as a place of worship for nurses working in Middlesex Hospital, it remained standing as the hospital buildings around it were demolished almost two decades ago, replaced with glossy commercial facades and modern pavings. But the chapel remains: the glistening mosaic of its gothic revival interiors offering a rare place to pause in the center of W1.
“In my practice, I’m really trying to create moments, interactions and spaces,” Colbert tells Broadsheet over Zoom, while wearing a No Problemo cap, her eyelids scribbled over with black liner. It’s been a busy summer for the artist, whose work spans filmmaking, photography, sculpture and furniture design, and is surrealist in approach. She recently unveiled a series of 30-foot polished-steel sculptures in New York and two surrealist installations in Venice to coincide with the opening of the Biennale. Supernatural Tendencies at Fitzrovia Chapel is no less ambitious, with the artist reimagining the historic London chapel as a site of “myth, ritual and imagination”.
The exhibition, which runs for nine days, from July 1 to 9, is named after a polished steel wishing well work that Colbert has adorned with her signature oversized eyes and other symbols to create a site of “intention, projection and desire”. The high-shine steel reflects both the viewer and the chapel itself: the tiny reflective mosaics, the ornate gold curvatures of the ceiling, the delicate light seeping in through the stained-glass windows. “In my practice, I work a lot with fairytales and archetypal stories, so it always feels sort of magic being able to bring my work into that space,” Colbert says. This isn’t the first time she’s shown here: in 2023, she brought her Alice in Wonderland-inspired series, Dreamland Sirens, into the chapel’s walls, complete with a towering silver eye sculpture placed in the center of the altar and a sound collaboration with celebrated film composer Isobel Waller-Bridge.
This time round, Colbert worked with the musician Birdy to penetrate the chapel’s usual quiet with a dreamlike soundscape playing on loop. “Her voice is the most extraordinary thing, it’s like something from between realms of reality,” Colbert says. “I’m really interested in these spaces of in-between, the kind of liminal spaces between consciousness, sleep and being awake.”
Meanwhile, a twisted silver tree installation that’s draped with silver chains holding votive objects stretches out its branches in the centre of the room, while a throne-like chair, holding books to browse, invites guests into a state of ever-greater escapism.
“I think the pieces, the reflection, the kind of whimsical nature of it, just allows for a little pause,” Colbert says. “I hope people will come and take five minutes to hang out, listen to the music, and perhaps make some wishes.”
Charlotte Colbert: Supernatural Tendencies is at at Fitzrovia Chapel from July 1–9.
