Norma Markley (1985)

I carefully design works that invoke the legacy of pop art, focusing on a strange social intersection of motels, towels, neon, take-out food, and sex. Creating unpredictable formal variations on this select group of products and services, I recombine an idiosyncratic mix of social spaces and social signage with the appropriated language of commodified sex, affixing provocative phrases to products that unblushingly suggest all kinds of hardcore action. My bathroom towels are perfectly embroidered with messages about kissing and licking. I make neon signs offering giddy, illuminated phrases and cut paper collages based on Americana. My work transforms products from ephemeral commercial encounters into stylishly produced, thoughtful symbols of throwaway culture.