CONSUMER SERIES

Jason McCoy
10"x10"
mixed media on paper
2006

"Another Side to Free"

"Too Much of a Good Thing"

"Congratulations! You Are Smart...Happy...Good"

"Americans Spend Over One Million Dollars on Stereotypes"

"The Future of the Truth"

"This Summer's Must Have Feeling"

"See the World Through Your Shopping Spree"

"It Could Be Bipolar Disorder"

This series focuses on the contradictions that surround Christmas: the western holiday season compared to the values within the eastern story of Christmas.

One aspect I wanted to explore is the trade-offs we make to maintain and justify our Consumerism. What amount of reality can be sacrificed to maintain the image that my kind and amount of consumption is normal? How much autonomy can be spared to comply with the slogans of advertisements? I also enjoy the way the text, though often preposterous and exaggerated, conveys a sense of authority simply because it was mass-produced.

Inherent within the work is the contradiction of perception and perspective. For example, it is easy to laugh at the stereotypical imagery contained within these works—the mom and pop from the 50s, the coffee drinker, the pipe smoking dad—with a smug sense of having “evolved” beyond such naiveté. And yet, the very thought itself casts me into my own dated understanding; I find myself scrutinized by future generations, and as a viewer I become an anachronism myself! It also comments on the danger of our warped self-perceptions: believing we are free when about to be consumed, that we exercise individual choice while subject to the larger culture, that we are somehow separate from what we consume ourselves.

Jason McCoy
10"x10"
mixed media on paper
2006