Knock Knock Knock

I dreamt I was going down in the lift of the block of flats where I used to live. The lift would go down past the ground floor. Blood dripped out of the ventilator. The lift stopped and the door opened. Something was there but I couldn't see. I screamed but no sound came out. 1

Harry, aged 13

A fibreglass model of a boy stands behind a semi-opaque glass door. His smart, glossy hair is the colour of melted chocolate, and below his neatly pressed, sky blue shorts is a leg calliper, painted to look like leather. In her installation The Boy from the Chemist Is Here to See You (1993), Kerry Stewart has incorporated a donation box for children with cerebral palsy, that familiar figure from chemist shops around Britain. Originally designed in the late 50s, the sculptures came in a variety of shapes, genders and sizes; some carried footballs, others held crutches. In 1986, the Spastics Society - now renamed SCOPE - began to withdraw these donation boxes on the grounds that they portrayed disabled children in a negative light, replacing them with Teddy Bears, Care Bears and Honey Bears.

For many of us, the chemist boy recalls drab afternoons waiting outside the local shops. On occasion, we might even have pushed a coin through the slot in his head. Even though the boy's brightly painted features held a certain toy-like attraction, the leg brace was a disturbing oddity that contradicted his otherwise normal appearance. As children, coming to terms with the boy's disability was not easy. Had he mysteriously sprung to life and called round to play - as Stewart's installation suggests - we would have avoided him like the plague.

I went to a secondary modern in Birmingham, and in my spare time I liked to go to coffee bars and listen to rock and roll and all that. I had a boyfriend who was eighteen - I suppose he was a bit of a teddy boy. I got pregnant the first time I ever made love. I was fourteen. It was awful. My mother was quite supportive but I was ostracised at school. They acted like they might catch it from me. 2

Sue Stapleton, aged 14

Another sculpture of Stewart's consists of a life-size sculpture of a pregnant schoolgirl, again in the style of a charity model. The features are crudely painted in hard-wearing enamels. As a potential donation box, the work begs the question: would you put your money in it? Stewart's sickly-sweet representation of a pregnant schoolgirl only further alienates her kind, echoing the concerns of SCOPE. In keeping with the artist's fascination with those most marginalised in the school playground, Twins (1995), depicts two identical boys. Her subjects are ten year-old brothers whom she photographed wearing a combination of school and cub-scout uniforms. The work is modelled in the style of the chemist boy, but without the air of benevolence. Instead, Stewart has focused on the alienation experienced by identical twins who, from an early age, are frequently stared at and forced to rely on one another's company.

People stare at us every time we go out. It is only when we are apart that they stop staring. I thought it was because we were peculiar, like we were ugly or something. What we do now, is when we travel on the underground, we wait until everyone is gawping at us and then we signal to each other and simultaneously pull really ugly faces. 3

Robert and John, aged 10

Twins can appear disconcerting, and the two figures exert an eerie presence. It is as though the boys have turned up to their own exhibition, and are standing in the corner of the room not talking to anyone, like the infamous silent twins June and Jennifer Gibbons. (The Gibbons, who had cut off all communication with adults by their early teens, went on an arson binge and were finally committed to Broadmoor Hospital in 1982 aged 19.)

A recent collaborative work with Ana Genoves, Ghost (1995), a stereotypical bed sheet phantom, towers over the viewer with raised arms, its sinister eyes indented in the smooth plaster surface. Painted white, the bed sheet has been sculpted to create the illusion that the spectre is running towards you. Its simplistic, cartoon quality recalls episodes of Scooby Doo and the harmless cigar-smoking ghosts in a Mickey Mouse adventure. The oversize scale of the piece and its material resemblance to durable plastics invoke outdoor play furniture like the Old Mother Hubbard boot found in pub gardens. But from a certain angle, Ghost recalls a fear of the dark, and nights spent under bedcovers in absolute terror. Like Rachel Whiteread's Ghost (1990), Stewart's work evokes a childhood full of abstract fears, 'scary places like the space under the bed or inside the wardrobe.' 4