Art in pill forms

Following on the theme from my last blog post, I have been looking at artists who use physical pills as a raw material/inspiration in their works.

Damien Hirst - Painkillers (2010)

Damien Hirst's 'Painkillers' are showcased on four light boxes, the work appears to exist as a metaphor for modern society, pairing together the mainstream availability to purchase and consume painkillers to numb pain and the association to consuming media through lightboxes, ie- television, which could be argued also 'numbs' people.

Chemical X - The Spirit of Ecstacy (2017)

Chemical X, previously known for creating work for the Ministry of Sound and creating works from ecstacy pills. In this piece, he has teamed up with another artist Shoony to create a hyper-realistic sculpture of a model submerged in a psychedelic arrangement of 7000 carefully placed ecstacy tablets. Media reports suggest a likeness of the model to Cara Develigne, as the tattoos are noticably identifiable to the model's own tattoos. The piece has been valued at around £1 Million.

"Chemical X said: “My work is about potential suspended in an everlasting moment, allowing the viewer to see what has been, what is and what could be — all in the same instant.”

A percentage of the sale price of The Spirit Of Ecstasy will be donated to  The Loop, a charity whose volunteers attend clubs and festivals and advise on drugs safety."

Beverley Fishman - Pain Management (2016-7)

Beverley Fishman portrays abstracted pill like forms with saturated colours and bold outlines in the image shown above, the oversized sculptures invite the viewer to investigate and acknowledge the forms. "By placing pill forms on walls; exaggerating their formal elements of scale, shape, volume, and color; and combining them in myriad creative ways, Fishman hopes to make the ordinary extraordinary and compel viewers to consider how medication mediates their sense of mood and self and shapes our culture as a whole. "

Daniel David - Dove (2017)

Daniel David reappropriates popular club culture from the 1990s and produces stone carved tablets to mimic ecstacy tablets. "Daniel David is deeply interested in stones’ inherent characteristics and continues to explore its limitations and creative potential – introducing synthetic processes to traditional stonemasonry. This experimental approach, investigating the interplay between materiality, concept and scale, marks a shift in conventional practices with stone, as he playfully scrutinizes the tension between the images he chooses to represent – temporary symbols of their time – and the permanence of the material and its historic associations. "

Erica Dal Maso - The Cure (2017)

Erica Dal Maso is an illustrator who sells her work on Society6.com, I like how the pills surround the face and suggest an all-encompassing influence. The figure also appears to be within a pool of water filled with capsules, suggesting that she is drowning in medication.

April Cooper - Addicted to Social Media

I found April's work on the same website, I liked the way she had simplified social media icons to make them appear as pill/capsule forms. This also reminds me of some work I was creating earlier in the year.

Jessie Kopka - Prescription Media (2018)

I created this to play on the idea of creating a blister pack of social media tablets. These days, you don't have to look far to see people engrossed in their phones. Even when they are taking the dog for a walk, the other day I saw a man trip over because he was not paying any attention to anything around him. I wanted to suggest the idea of minimal doses of social media because it has become such a distraction in people's lives and/or the suggestion that social media could help people in smaller doses.

Pharmacopoeia - Cradle to the Grave 2003

"The installation tells the story of an average man and woman told through the medication they have taken in their life and accompanied by photographs, documents and objects. ‘Cradle to Grave’ sheds a particular light on a person’s medical history from a medicines’ point of view. Depending on how old the onlooker is, the installation likewise projects a glimpse into a possible future and a thorough reflection on that.

Pharmacopoeia is a medical-art collaboration between the artists Susie Freeman and David Critchley and the family doctor Liz Lee. Over the last ten years we have created a body of work that explores different aspects of health and ill health. Most of our work reflects attitudes and health beliefs that are common in the UK, but we have also worked on projects in other European countries and in Africa."

I can recall seeing this particular piece of work at the British Museum in 2008, I remember being surprised by the sheer quantity of medications encapsulated within the knitted pockets, it led me to ponder what the medications were for and what impact they are having on people.

Pharmacopoeia - WOWI What Once Was Imagined (2017)

In a recent piece by Pharmacopoeia, assemblages of medication and their packaging have been used to create a large scale artwork to depict natural and organic forms. This relationship between natural forms and medication is acknowledged through various plant extracts that are used in modern day medicine.

" Suffering is part of the human condition and so in spite of the availability of a multitude of medicines the search continues for both organic and inorganic compounds from which to make new pills to help us live longer, healthier and happier lives.

The concept for Pharmacopoeia’s ‘mantilha’ centres on the fact that a significant number of drugs have their origins in plants and naturally occurring microorganisms. It is well known in the UK that the heart drug Digoxin is derived from the beautiful Foxglove plant. The most effective treatment for falciparum malaria was found in the plant Artemisinin; long known to the Chinese for its medicinal properties. Most recent of all the drug Crofelemer from the red sap of the Croton Lechleri plant, and used by indigenous cultures of the Amazon, has been approved for treating side effects of HIV antiretrovirals.

Whether in the chemistry laboratory or in the rain forest it takes a huge leap of the imagination to identify and then painstakingly develop and produce a new drug. Each pill, apparently so simple, is really nothing of the sort. It is an absolute triumph and testament to man’s intelligence and ingenuity."

Pharmacopoeia - Miss Essex

"Miss Essex is an obese young diabetic woman with serious mental health problems. She regularly sees both her GP and her psychiatrist.

She is prescribed a diabetic tablet called Metformin which helps reduce blood sugar levels and Enalapril Maleate to lower her blood pressure.

She has also been prescribed a number obesity drugs. Orlistat reduces the absorption of fat from the intestine which can contribute to weight loss especially when combined with an appropriate diet. Fenfluramine is an appetite suppressant which used to be prescribed to obese people but was withdrawn following reports of serious side effects.

Her mental health problems are complex, including both depressive and psychotic illnesses. She has been prescribed a number of antidepressants such as Prozac and Mirtazepine. She has also taken Stelazine, an anti-psychotic drug, and in turn Procyclidine to combat some of the severe side effects of Stelazine.

One of the consequences of her poor mental health is that at times she continues to collect her prescriptions but does not take the drugs. These hoards of pills have been collected from her often months or years after they have been prescribed."

The work titled Miss Essex shows the consequences of attempting to medicate heavily against mental health conditions. It reminds me of the old metaphor "you can take a horse to water, but you can't teach it to drink", the doctors can prescribe the medication but the patient may not necessarily take it. This resistance or unwillingness to take the medication has now been turned into an artwork that symbolises the young woman's health conditions.

Pharmacopoeia - O.T.C Veil

In this piece, O.T.C stands for over the counter, which is a term given to medications that are available for purchase over the counter (without prescription). The Veil is significant to suggest the aesthetic likeness of O.T.C minerals, supplements and pain relief could be comparable to that of more potent medications that are only available on prescription.

My search for influences on the subject area will continue, I have been impressed and surprised by how much variety of expression is out there that links so strongly to one of my main influences in my artwork.