Ivan Pollard

Lipstick on Mirror, 2008
Lipstick on Mirror

Artist's statement:
“This piece is a reflection on the current self-loathing and nihilism that pervades today’s society.  The selfish and futile pursuit of beauty at all costs and the judgments that are made by one person of another based on nothing more than the shimmering surface of superficiality.  The silken skin, the toothsome smile and the buttocks of steel are a blight on our cankered existence.
The fact that we cut, snip, primp, sculpt, depilate and remove the bits of our very selves in pursuit of an improved model is a sickening indictment of how far gone we are.
This piece uses an ornate frame symbolising the manufactured decoration of the industrialised world; it uses a mirror symbolising the asinine behaviour of self-appraisal that has become no more meaningful since Narcissus lost himself in reflection; and it uses one of the very tools of the trade of transforming the natural to the carnal – lipstick – smeared onto every pair of lips in the land to transform them into the luscious love gates of the blood-swelled organs of lust.
Do you like what you see?
The piece represents the artist’s rejection of the cult of superficial beauty and calls for an alternative aesthetic.
It also reflects the fact the artist is a wanker.”