«Too much doesn’t mean good»

In 1363 the English Parliament passed a law that told each social class what it was allowed to wear. Cloth and furs were sorted by rank, so your clothes announced where you stood before you said a word. I think luxury brand art starts there. Today a logo does that job.

That law is the starting point of this painting.

A woman looks out of the dark like a sitter in an old court portrait. Her tall royal blue headdress is covered in interlocking white monograms, with a thin gold band along the edge. Her eyes are pale blue, a turquoise drop hangs from her ear, and a collar of thick white paint reads as fur. Her face is not whole. A strip holding her lips has slid sideways, a black bar crosses her forehead, a black square sits on her cheek, and paint drips down her skin. Red pixel steps, a cyan line and yellow and green bars float on the left. The black background is built up in rough relief.

In 1987 Barbara Kruger made "I shop therefore I am" and said out loud what shoppers knew. I wanted contemporary pop art to say it again in the logo age, where the pattern matters more than the face. The coloured blocks are my nod to Mondrian. I like a strict grid next to a headdress made of logos.

The title is my whole opinion. More gold, more logos and more layers do not make a person better, and the person is the part that gets cut up and hidden. It is an original pop art painting in oil and acrylic on canvas, 120 x 90 cm, from 2022, and as luxury brand art it works as statement wall art for a room that can take a loud picture.

This original is sold. Most of my original paintings are already in private collections, but I paint originals to order in any size. To ask about this one, message me on Instagram or by email. For your own wall, I also make a hand-finished lithograph of this image.