Never Again by Alice Lang, 2023

This artwork measures 1.52 metres tall by 3.35 metres wide and is entitled Never Again. This piece is accompanied by another artwork in the series entitled My Body, which is hanging on the wall to the right also featuring and utilising puff paint, which provides a raised, three-dimensional, and tactile quality to the surface of the works.

Focusing on the work, Never Again the artwork is installed hanging from a curtain rod approximately 10 centimetres out from the wall. The work hangs and droops down heavy with its own weight. The word ‘Never’ is at the top of the work and the word ‘Again’ appears below. Both words are executed in an uppercase balloon shaped font with rounded larger than life novelty lettering. The text has been cut out and removed revealing the white wall behind it, leaving drooping holes where the letters were once found. Lurid, bright colours of blue, yellow, pink, purple and green are interspersed with layers of black puff paint each colour repeatedly tracing around the individual letters of text to form both a thick layer of material across the unstretched canvas and in turn an optical effect, psychedelic in its nature and form.

The artist explains the vast volume of puff paint employed here as follows, “This bulk use of puff paint creates a pathetic, placid painting which literally cannot support itself and is intended to both neuter the idea of the heroic macho painting that continues to endure throughout art history and monumentalise materials that are considered low-art.

The text Never Again is intended to reflect the ongoing backlash against feminism and the mainstream resurgence of misogyny within contemporary culture. Never Again,a well-known pro-choice slogan flops and buckles under the weight of the puff paint from which it is made, deflating and melting the text.”