Love messages coated in sugar

PHRASES from Love Heart sweets are used by artist Trudie Stephenson to concoct adverts for lonely hearts columns.

“Tall, slim, blonde, 27 and FANCY FREE seeks DREAM BOY with ANGEL FACE to be her LUCKY STAR” is an example.

“I have the roles of game master and voyeur as I receive and read the letters,” says Stephenson.

“When you don’t really know what you’re getting you tend to fantasise and fabricate,” she adds.

Does she mean that someone who describes themselves as “hunky, swarthy, enigmatic male” is really overweight, ultra-hairy and totally speechless? Who knows?

Be Mine, her exhibition, is at the Tram Depot Gallery, 38/40 Upper Clapton Road, London E5 8AB, from 2 to 10 September.