Elijah's Art Research

Michel Majerus, overdose, 1997. Acrylic on canvas, fifteen panels, 189 × 275⅝ inches.

Michel Majerus was a Luxembourgian artist whose work was ahead of its time, with its conglomeration of varying sources, from advertising and video games to art history.

Overdose is a staggeringly large painting, reaching nearly sixteen feet in height and spanning twenty three feet wide. It easily fills an entire gallery wall, invading the viewer's space, which paired with its collage-esque appearance, is quite jarring.

The piece features vivid motifs, from an ice cream sandwich wrapper to Woody from Toy Story. The overlapping and melding of images makes the composition confusing and nonsensical to the eye, further pushing the confusing narrative. Majerus' work often combined many varied sources in this way, which depicted the emerging information overload of the internet at the time and even to this day.

In 2002, Michel Majerus tragically died in a plane crash at the age of 35. His laptop was recovered from the crash, and now, over 20 years later, artist Cory Arcangel is revealing its contents to the world through YouTube. He and Dragan Espenscheid, a preservation director, worked carefully to ensure the laptop functioned exactly how it did when Majerus used it.

Screenshot of Michel Majerus’s laptop (a PowerBook G3), selected by Cory Arcangel, 2023.

The laptop's entire interface was customised, in every possible way. It remains a powerful and intimate documentation of his work and process, as well as existing as an artwork in its own right. Arcangel believes that Majerus would be pleased for it to be shown through a YouTube tutorial, a modern form of documentation using technology, considering the themes of his works and his interests.

Liza Lou, Closet (1997-1998), glass beads, wood, and New York couple's empty bottles and unwanted household objects, Gift of Sherry and Joel Mallin.

Liza Lou is an American born artist who primarily works in large-scale sculptures. The originality of her work is rooted in the labour within it, as every surface is hand-covered with tiny glass beads. This painstaking task centralises her work on materiality and labour, while addressing women's issues and traditionality. Using crafts is often seen in contemporary art in an innately rebellious manner, as well as a political commentary on the traditional feminine roots in crafts.

Closet, as pictured above, is an intimate piece on marriage and daily life. Lou replicated Sherry and Joel Mallins' utility closet, and they sent her all of their discarded household items over a one year period. From board games to empty paint cans, Lou curated a selection of objects for their contextual presence, from the mundane 'housewife work' objects, to objects with hidden evocative meanings. Of course, every object was encased in coloured glass beads.

Takashi Murakami, 3m Girl, 2011

(Original rendering by Seiji Matsuyama, modeling by BOME and Genpachi Tokaimura, full scale sculpture by Lucky-Wide Co., Ltd.)

I was intrigued by this specific exhibition of Murakami's work by Gagosian in 2011, featuring his latest works.

(Installation view, 2011)

The exhibition featured two sculptures based around Japanese comics known as manga. Manga is notorious for its oversexualised characters, featuring innocent, huge eyes, impossible proportions, and its undeniable lean into the sexualisation of the cute. The sculptures, 3-Metre Girl and Miss KO2, embody two different ends of the otaku culture spectrum. Miss KO2, made in 1997, focuses on the excessive long legs and features a uniform plays on the fantasized erotic culture within manga. 3-Metre Girl pushes these exaggerations to their limits, featuring a manga figure with abundant hair rolling down her excessive figure. Her legs are spread and she leans forward, her finger to her mouth in a stereotypically 'innocent' look. Her bust itself is the largest part of her body, which is incredibly petite otherwise. It seems as though they threaten to topple her over.

Shintaro Ohata, "In a corner of the world", 2016, acrylic painting on canvas, sculpture mixed-media

Shintaro Ohata is a Japanese painter who strongly focuses on light to depict our everyday surroundings. From natural sunlight to artificial city lights, Ohata's style of capturing this lighting creates a cinematic effect.

Ohata states that he has always been inspired by cinema and theatre backgrounds in his work. In 2005, he wanted to give his works a more 'realistic feel' without changing his painting style. This led him to his unique method of combining sculpture with his 2-D paintings, allowing the viewer to immerse themselves in his creation.

Shintaro Ohata, "in the sound", 2012, acrylic painting on canvas, mixed-media sculpture

(Above) Hello Kitty Cosmetics for sale in Bangkok

Excerpt from my current essay that I wanted to share analysing Hello Kitty's consumerist power over us.

Hello Kitty bedsheets, Hello Kitty cosmetics, Hello Kitty tissue boxes, Hello Kitty lighters, Hello Kitty condoms. The list of Hello Kitty products has expanded to an unfathomable amount, becoming a ‘merchandise empire’, with over 50,000 products sold in 130 countries with Hello Kitty’s face slapped on. As Harris argues, sentimental objects (which Hello Kitty is, as she triggers emotional connections) are so commonplace in our consumerist landscape today, that they become ‘visual clutter’, an invasive aesthetic that we are so accustomed to we ‘respond to without really seeing’. Her design is simplistic, both benefiting the cost of production and the element of cuteness. Her unchanged design in the last 50 years has allowed her to tap into the adult market, as humans long for the nostalgic face they grew to love as children.

Hello Kitty’s cute aesthetic is a powerful driving force of consumption through its affective application of the ideologies surrounding cuteness. The main feature of her design I would like to focus on first is the lack of a mouth. Her lack of a mouth, described by Sanrio’s Nakajima Seiji, allows you to ‘easily imagine Kitty is sharing whatever feeling you have at that moment’. However, the lack of a mouth in the context of Sianne Ngai’s cute ties back to the ‘eroticization of the powerlessness’, with Kitty’s inability to speak, swallow, or even breathe. This feature being interpreted as cute accesses its ability to ‘evoke tenderness and aggression against unthreatening commodities’.

Alex Colville, Dog and Bridge (1976) & To Prince Edward Island (1965)

Alex Colville is a Canadian artist whose work was closely aligned with the American Precisionism, which began in the 1930s. His work could be loosely described as photo-realism, but that serves a disrespect to the unique, uncanny-like elements of his work.

His paintings start first with many sketches, including ones in a geometric format, which then become sketches of the live model in precise proportioning. He then uses thinned paint to create endless layers onto wooden panels, creating the seemingly perfect, smooth edges, reminiscent of spray painting.

The main focus that draws me to his work is the unique qualities of his painting now have a new connection, one that would not have been made until decades after many of his works were created. The smooth edges and flattened lighting resemble (often closely on a scary level) original Playstation Games.

The specific, clunky but nostalgic visuals of PS2 games has a strange uniqueness to it itself. This look was impossible to replicate on other gaming consoles, both at the time and even the PS5 now. This was because the architecture of the console. The graphics processor, colloquially known as the Emotion Engine, was incredibly advanced for its time, allowing Sony to create the classic hazy, smoother visuals within the blocky atmospheres.

Hannah Wilke's work was rooted in feminism, using sculpture, and her own body in video, photography, and performance. Her work focused on feminist ideas using her body as a medium and a landscape. Later in her life, she was diagnosed with lymphoma, which she documented her experience up until her death.

S.O.S. – Starification Object Series, 1974-82

The starification object series combined both performance and photography to address the objectification of the female body. Wilke offered the audience pieces of gum to chew, which she then took and sculpted into abstract vulva shapes. She then adhered the pieces to her body.

The adhering to the body transforms the tiny sculptures into small, scar-like extensions of her own body. She used gum as the medium as she said it was the 'ideal metaphor for the American woman': Chew her up, get what you want out of her, throw her out and pop in a new piece.

mismatched, (2025)

Mismatched, my first photobook, is a documentation of my life in my third college apartment. The fleeting feeling of moving has been a constant in my life, and reminds me that the space is temporary, but the people and activities often stay ritually similar. The work focuses on the duality between the moment of partying and socialising with friends, and the mess and disarray caused in the aftermath.

For many of the photos of my friends, I used a long exposure, capturing two separate moments into one image. This was largely inspired by Luke Fowler’s Two Frame Films, creating a narrative through time and space shared. The movement and fluidity of figures blending together, and singular figures splitting into two, is reminiscent of the blurring perception of the moment, and the dreaded temporary of a good time.