Andrea Morris

Hard On for Sparklys
paint and seed beads on aluminum
5 pcs. 7 x 5 in.

“Hard On for Sparklys” was conceived through a linguistic mishap. After spontaneously describing a fictional, kleptomanical character on television as “having a hard-on for sparklys”, I traced the associations the phrase implied.

Crows, attracted to shiny objects, have earned the reputation of thieves. In some cultures, crows are omens of death.

“Sparkly” is a metaphor for the unnecessary luxury sought so desperately by Americans, seemingly unaware that their feelings of lack are engineered by commercial culture. The crows carry the objects to entice the fickle public, simultaneously luring them to their certain doom.

Rendered in a graphic style, “Hard On for Sparklys” distills the crow figures down to stylized silhouettes. Denying their intended use, seed beads are glued onto the surfaces to create the luxury objects on a background of aluminum sheets, reflecting yet distorting the viewer’s features.

© Andrea Morris