Painting and Pharma
2022
2022
Painting and Pharma is a series of paintings with ground medications (antidepressants, anxiolytics and antipsychotics) in which I associate drugs usually prescribed to treat mental health illnesses with works by artists of the Color Field Painting movement. Each work reproduced here, using mixtures of acrylic paint and crushed tablets, was originally made by its author the same year that the brand of medicine that I have superimposed on it came onto the market.
Undoubtedly, the triumph of psychopharmacology in contemporary society is intimately linked to a culture of overproduction, hyperconsumption and anesthesia. We live under the imposed premise that dictates that a healthy body is equal to a productive subject, and that if we cannot adhere to that standard there will always be a pill that we can ingest to solve it. In this sense, to me, Painting and Pharma is a speculative exercise which, based on curiosity or even the fortuitous, explores the overwhelming presence of these drugs in our lives. This is a project of paintings with drugs that is not about painting, neither about drugs. God bless Western culture.
Exhibited at LLANO, Mexico City. April 27 _ June 4, 2022
Prozac - Kenneth Noland, 2022 / Pulverized Fluoxetine and acrylic paint on canvas. 150 x 170 x 4.5 cm
Thorazine - Mark Rothko, 2022 / Pulverized Chlorpromazine and acrylic paint on canvas. 130 x 80 x 4.5 cm
Rivotril - Josef Albers, 2022 / Pulverized Klonopin and acrylic paint on canvas. 100 x 100 x 4.5 cm
Tofranil - Frank Stella 2, 2022 / Pulverized Imipramine and acrylic paint on canvas. 120 x 180 x 4.5 cm
Xanax - Agnes Martin, 2022 / Pulverized Alprazolam and acrylic paint on canvas. 130 x 130 x 4.5 cm
Valium - Jules Olitski, 2022 / Pulverized Diazepam and acrylic paint on canvas. 120 x 120 x 4.5 cm
Librium - Ellsworth Kelly, 2022 / Pulverized Alprazolam and acrylic paint on canvas. 160 x 115 x 4.5 cm
Rivotril - Clyfford Still, 2022 / Pulverized Klonopin and acrylic paint on canvas. 150 x 130 x 4.5 cm
Paxil - Sol Lewitt, 2022
Marsilid - Ellsworth Kelly, 2022
Librium - Morris Louis, 2022
Rivotril - Josef Albers 2, 2022
Thorazine - Barnett Newman, 2022
Valium - Ellsworth Kelly, 2022
Prozac - Anne Truitt, 2022
Tofranil - Frank Stella, 2022
Xanax - Ellsworth Kelly, 2022
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Installation views: LLANO, Mexico City
Installation views: LLANO, Mexico City
