Beer Bong

2020

30 x 50 cm

Painting submission for Grayson Perry's Channel 4 Artclub

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/graysons-art-club


The Beer Bong painting is a socio-critical comment on the excessive and over-indulgent culture we live in, using the example of a self-destructive drinking game. Beer Bong has as only purpose to get as wasted and as drunk in as little time as possible, striving towards ultimate delirium or total knock out.
While it probably isn't uniquely British - I've observed it (amongst other crazy drinking games) in the media while living in Britain - it is an exemplary darker moment of a fragile society held in equilibrium that at any point may tip over and can see a breakdown of moral code, ethic values and social etiquette, not unlike in a J G Ballard novel (Highrise, Super-Cannes etc.). The lockdown period reminds me of (the possibilities of) a similar state.