Temperatures are rising at Enter Gallery this week with the arrival of Heat 76 - a new piece from Brighton artist, Poppy Faun, available exclusively at Enter Gallery now.
In this exclusive, Faun delivers her latest hit of surrealist escapism, fanning the flames with astute observations about the pressures of modern life, and humanity’s staunch ability to ignore warning signs in our pursuit to own the finer things in life.
In today’s article, we’re chatting to Faun to learn more about Heat 76, and the intentions behind the red-hot piece.
Under Pressure
In Heat 76, Faun depicts a couple reclining on a stylish lounge suite in an otherworldly environment, reminiscent of the surface of Mars. Poppy explains:
“I see this couple as a bit like Adam and Eve. They’re the first arrivals in a new civilisation who’ve left Earth and all of its many pressures behind in search of a simpler life… yet, they can’t quite let go of the material goods that people chase – the beautiful house, the stylish car and furniture. It raises the question, what do people want, a simpler life, or the materialistic things we’re taught to want?”
Some Like it Hot
This exclusive new piece emanates heat, and this effect was no accident. Faun reveals:
“Heat 76 highlights all the good things in life – the sunshine and the beautiful possessions we all live for, and that’s okay on one hand, life is short, of course, you want to experience and enjoy the good bits. It’s just also important to think about the cost of the kind of lifestyle where all we think about is the next possession we can acquire.”
“I use the heat of the piece to represent a number of things. There are the pressures of modern life right now, whether that’s financial pressures, war, our obsession with the digital world.”
“It’s also about rising temperatures. Everybody loves the sunshine, right? We’ve just had a heatwave in the UK, and everyone was flocking to the beach and out into the sunshine, determined to make the most of it, but really the UK shouldn’t be having 35 degree heatwaves. That’s a fact that it’s all too easy to ignore when the sun is shining.”
Universal Mind Control
Those who’ve followed Faun’s career for a while now will recognise that this piece is reminiscent of her hugely-popular piece, Control. Exuding her signature rock and roll aesthetic, both pieces feature particular motifs as nods to how we’ve been influenced by outside sources since the 60s and 70s, most notably, the television.
Via its deep red, almost hellish background, Heat 76 hints at the negative connotations of these things we allow to control us. Faun explains:
“Both Heat 76 and Control explore the things that we are sucked into. Up until the 60s, TV’s weren’t common in anyone’s home. In all of the magazines I work with from the era, every other page is an advert for a TV or a landline phone. It’s where our obsession with screens started. Now, when you fast forward to modern day, every single person has a tv, every single person is watching something, every single person is on their phone – we’re completely absorbed.”
“In this new piece, the TV I feature is broken, it’s just a blank yellow nothingness, but it’s still sat there in the heat. It’s burnt out, done, but they still have to have it. It’s a reflection of how many of us feel about our devices now…we know they control us, but yet they’re still here, ruling our lives.”
Heat 76 by Poppy Faun is available now, exclusively at Enter Gallery.
