'Lip Service', Aluminum Dye Sublimation, 80 X 144 cm (32 X 57 inches), 2018 James Rosenquist, the American pop art artist... Read More
'Lip Service', Aluminum Dye
Sublimation, 80 X 144 cm (32 X 57 inches), 2018
James Rosenquist, the American pop art artist has always
been a great inspiration for me. I have always admired his large scale
message-laden artworks such as the 1965 ‘F-111’ and the 1981 ‘House of Fire’
where, among other things, red-hot lipsticks are aligned like a battery of
cannons.
These Rosenquist’s lipsticks were one inspiration for
creating this work. The other being Isaiah's memorable preaching "... and
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares", which takes here a
somewhat modern disposition: rifle bullets are lathed, one after the other as
if on a moving assembly line, only to expose the rosy lipsticks that had always
been concealed inside. 'Lip Service' humbly tries to call for the need to end
the Arms Race by humorously combining two extreme worlds, military service and
feminine beauty, and asserting the supremacy of the latter.
To achieve the goal behind the artwork, a couple of
similar-shaped objects have been chosen: A rosy lipstick on the one hand and a
rifle bullet on the other. These bullets are being lathed and while the metal
chips scatter all over, the lipsticks that were always hidden inside the
bullets, waiting to be released, are revealed and exposed to the world. Beauty
wins military service - make love not war.
