The Egg And The Hammer

This work is a narrative of the cheap, depressing and socially oppressive entertainment to which we are subjected on a daily basis; magenta gossip magazines with tangerine faces, cruel and banal talent shows with judges who know very little about nothing. It is intended to evoke a feeling of plasticity and the damaging effects of normalisation that pop culture unashamably promotes; it may be a bold statement, but it is Millais ‘Ophelia’ thrown into the stench and noise of the ‘Folies Bergere’, or a smokeless market town pub. The hammer is glass and the seemingly fragile egg is perched on an iron plinth bolted to the floor. The judges and baying ‘thumbs down’ audience in the amphitheatre are safe in the background, obscured by the blue-violet studio lights. The contestant, in almost all his glory looks questioningly, to you the viewer as he contemplates his final act of humility.