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Mixed Media artist Miss Bugs is to unveil a new installation, entitled Do No Harmat Jealous Gallery. The installation consists of 900 vibrant coloured resin ‘popsicles’, that in containing a range of pharmaceuticals, critique contemporary society's obsession and consumption of social media.
Miss Bugs continues to draw on the theme of addiction to digital technology, and how over exposure to news reels and digital feeds can act as an anaesthetic and numb the sense of reality. Algorithms mean one becomes stuck in their own ‘echo chamber’, and can only gain access to content that has been externally chosen to be suitable for them.
This dark notion is ‘sugar coated’ in the aesthetics of the popsicles. Each lolly is made up of three layers of different coloured resin, in which a mix of surgical blades, Viagra, syringes and various painkillers are contained. In the gallery the pop art style lollies will be presented on mass in pharmaceutical orderliness. They will be sold in medical packaging, with instructions for application, how to store and a warning of the side effects.
The installation’s title Do No Harmis pulled from the Hippocratic Oath, whereby doctors promise to abstain from any intentional wrong doing to a patient. The irony of the statement is evident in today’s networks and social dialogue where we continuously self-harm and cause harm to others, in an endless loop.
Miss Bugs says: “The ice lollies represent the churn of the social network; the posed selfies, the frothy coffee top photos and the cute animal videos side of the internet that we all like to binge on, but inside it’s rotten and sick. Digital technology whilst being a sweetener in our lives perpetually distracts us with a constant, addictive stream of information and temptation. The internet becomes a space where reason and logic are trumped by fake news, and people with extremes of opinion can shout each other down. The candy on the outside sugar coats the sickness within.”
Miss Bugs individually hand craft each piece and their artistic process is time consuming with unpredictable results. The process of mixing media and styles have led to Miss Bugs being deemed ‘Visual DJs’, who like their influences such as Gary Hume, Hannah Höch and artists from the pop art movement, remix, resource and reimagine pop culture.
Artist:
Miss Bugs was founded in the early part of 2007, originally coming from a background in photography and graphics. Miss Bugs’ work takes iconic imagery from pop culture and art history and reforms it using collage and other mixed media methods. Often their work sees the appropriation of modern and contemporary artists such as Mondrian, Hirst and Koons, along with referencing many other contemporary artists and outsider art, which are recomposed in their collages and silk screens to make new reconstructed pieces. Historically the work, with its multi-layered references, has called into question the nature and structure of the art establishment itself. They have had sell out shows in New York, LA, San Francisco, Paris and London and their artwork is in a number of significant private collections around the world
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