I definitely drank from at least one of the glasses. I’d like to think it was a Clos de Vougeot 1845. Incidentally, it was the birthday of a girl working at the gallery a few days before the show, so we celebrated with some drinks, hence the spillage on the top of the bar.

I got the umbrellas from a site called www.kitschulike.com.

The ceramic 'martinis' are all handbuilt/glazed/fired by me. These glasses show up in the paintings in this show as well. I have used these graphics in various forms before and they evolve from piece to piece.

We made this bar using plasterboard, in the week preceding the show, during which time we used the gallery as an ad hoc studio space. While continuing the recurrent motifs of drinking in the paintings, the sculptural element contstructs vantage points from which to view the works.

The imagery is a mix of my own drawing and altered found imagery made in illustrator. These hand motifs were new for this piece, althoguh I have used the martini glasses in similar variations before. In this instance there was something interesting happening with the hands, which appeared beckoning for a drink or holding the martini, depending on the way they were screenprinted. The repeat screenprinting gives a sense of seeing double.

I am fairly intuitive when it comes to color, although the yellow-like gold and black of the screenprints was a nod to Art Deco design, and offset the raw plainess of the plasterboard. These colors are furthermore echoed in the ceramics, and the spillage on the bar itself. There were even some strange and amazing color coincidences with the similar palette of Ida Ekblad's paintings, also in this show.