From the Curator,
What do we want, now? What fuels the viscous cycle of wanting and wasting that defines our modern world?
We recently asked artists around the world to respond to this question for the following online art exhibition. We asked artists to question consumerism, instant-gratification, desire, capitalism, lust, greed, hunger, and all the various ways we act on, and enable our inner urges. In doing so, we have carved a space to see dark desires unleashed, and creatively reflected on.
Dive deep into this well of desires and you may discover some new ways of thinking about your own wants and needs. But mostly you will probably find that you don’t need to dive down anywhere far, or even anywhere at all, so see humanity’s hunger run wild. The evidence is everywhere, and growing greater by the day.
Explore Cravings below and hear from our incredible selected artists and be sure to follow and support them for more great work.
Enjoy the show!
– S
Yasmin Fakhoury
United States
Sweet
9 x 12 in.
My work is a musing on desire’s ambiguous nature, and on the strained relationship between self-authenticity and decadence.
Ellaya Yefymova
Kiev, Ukraine
The Apotheosis of invisible struggle
Oil & acrylic on canvas, 110*80 cm
Along with the rapid growth of high technology, unreasonable consumerism is also growing. As we dive deeper into the virtual reality, we forget about pressing ecological problems and the consequences of mindless consumption. It’s time for every one of us to think and take action, otherwise…
Dipali Deshpande
Mumbai, India
Awakening Desire
Oil and mixed media on Linen 60 x 36 Inch
I include Indian women’s draperies made by handloom industry in my works. I am very much interested to represent my observation concerning the texture, colour and embroidery motifs including other accessories which represents aesthetics in Indian culture. I try to depict different stories of women using draperies and textiles in my paintings.
The word “CRAVING” suggests me hunger for passionate love, Desire. My feelings were chained in a box, deep down in dark somewhere and suddenly they are released. Now they want to fly like a feather, get loved like there will be no tomorrow. The desire is rising, slowly Awakening.
Jess Parry
South Wales, United Kingdom
Loudmouth, Read my lips, PROVOKE
Acrylics on Canvas 81cm x 102cm 2020, 18cm x 24cm, Acrylics and fine liner on Calico 2021, Acrylics on Calico 90cm x 90cm 2021
Cravings.
Where do cravings go? What generates someone to crave for something? What’s the first thing you think of when you think of the word ‘craving?’
For me its the mouth.
Craving is a very viciously psychologically challenged and charged word.
The craving starts off as psychological and then becomes something physical.
It’s a human or humane word.
That craving can become so fierce, it can become this carnivore-like animalistic thing, from something which was so sweet and seductive, that started out as nothing but a thought, evoked something so strong.
Before the craving, one’s mouth typically waters. Drools.
The craving becomes an object of desire, then an abject of thing.
The work I have submitted heavily involves the mouth as the mouth is that place of juicy visceral flesh and saliva. My work reveals the sides of all things physical and psychologically associated with a craving.
Yeganeh Ghadirian
Iran
The Recycling Collection
Today, the growing desire for consumerism in societies has increased environmental pollution and caused great damage to nature and animals. For years, I had such a concern to turn disposable materials into value so that it might help clean up the environment. In my opinion, artists can play an important role in removing the ugliness of consumerism by new ideas of recycling.
Paul Ogunlesi
Nigeria
Of Desires and Wants
Newsprints and Acrylics on canvas.
Fear does not crown champions.
If you wish to have something great done for and with you. You will have to keep taking great and calculated risks, because greatness indeed takes immense risks always.
Smrti Lekha Gogoi
Dibrugarh, Assam, India
Greed, Gluttony ( The Raven’s Call ), Anger, Envy
Acrylic on canvas/ 72X48 Inches ( each )
Living and growing up in an age and society of people with varied traditional and cultural backgrounds, ethical principles, caste and creed, I have always been keen about how every individual react, feel and engage quite differently given a particular situation whether in their most personal spaces or in public. So, keeping in mind of these terms, my art practice is the idea relating to the facts which defines the connection between the frailties of human beings and their ethical rules and principles which shapes every individual’s major part of their lives. To be brought up in a society and age which I personally feel somehow lacks in spiritual values and morality, I am trying to explore and bring out the misplaced, ignored and forgotten moral values due to which most of we people face distinguishable scenarios of unavoidable circumstances and representing them in the form of mockery/ satire as a method of provoking the viewer or observer that these virtues, moral values and ethical principles are the essential part of our living.
Zahra Mohamadi
Iran – Tehran
Manual Collage
From our bodies, which are like cages, we make our way to freedom, and in this way, craving, will not leave us. Our subjugated bodies are the origin of craving and desires. We make hope out of our hopes.
Sarah Baker
United States
Untitled Set
Laser-cut Acrylic, Vinyl, Approx. 9″x14″x0.
The following work was made using images taken from the ultimate capitalist machine: Instagram. With the aid of GAN, the artist combined the images taken from Instagram into two separate forms. The forms were then cut out of neon acrylic. The result is a slick, attractive set, materialized from the hungry desire-filled machine that is Instagram.
Marjan Morshedzadeh
Iran
Duality
I am a woman in the darkness and lusts of the modern world,
My femininity is so lost in this dark and lustful world that from time to time I show myself in two bodies.
Sometimes I am full of darkness and sometimes I am full of light and beauty
Meta Roller
Germany
That’s the way it is
Acryl on Paper, 64 x 50 cm
What we eat should not look at us from the plate.
We want it nicely packaged from the supermarket, it should look appealing, be germ-free and above all cheap and plenty.
We don’t want to see it as a baby, with baby skin and primal trust. We are too sensitive for that!
We also don’t want to know its “production site”, where it sits crammed in its excrements and never sees the sun, that only makes us sad.
Is that too much to ask? We just want a schnitzel!
Dottie-may Aston
United Kingdom
The Banquet
100 x 100 cm
Curb your cravings! Feast your eyes on the delectable female figure laid out for your sole enjoyment. On-the-bone sumptuously plump idea of emaciated perfection. Starve yourself no more!
Malihe Dashti
Sabzevar, Razavi Khorasan, Iran
Greed
20cm × 25cm
In a world doomed to destruction, greed has no end.