NYAB Event - Jason Clay Lewis "Drop Dead Gorgeous"

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At 31 Grand
Media: Installation

Empathy/apathy, desire/revulsion, poison/panacea, death/life, religion/blasphemy: Drop Dead Gorgeous distills these binaries into Poison/Religion, pushing the boundaries between them. Which is good? Which is bad? Are these judgments even possible?

The poison pieces reference Empathy: as we go up the food chain, our empathy increases until we reach the ultimate form represented by the Crucifixion. Lewis’s fascination with religious topoi—seen throughout his work—this time focuses on semiotic ambivalence of Christian iconography. “d-CON Mary,” a recognizable form covered in rat poison packaging and prominently displayed bar codes, questions not only the innocuousness of religion but also the commercialization of religious iconography.

The motif of the skull has reoccurred throughout Lewis’s work, appearing in works ranging from the contemplative Ikebana sculptures, to the death’s head pin-up girl paintings, to the horrors of war as seen in the Torture Panel paintings. Hyperfeminized and seductively posed pinups are topped by bare skulls—a disjunction that causes an abrupt cessation of panting adolescent desire. However, despite its aura of death and horror, the skull also recalls and reaffirms life: if Death were one of these golden haired seductresses, who would be afraid?

[Image: Jason Clay Lewis "d-CON Mary" (2008) d-CON packaging, fiberglass, 61 1/2" x 24" x 18"]

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