Sweet Things – Ashley Miller

The still life, as a type of representation, nods toward product and food photography, but I try to complicate the subtext of desire with elements of violence and disgust and humor. In this way, the familiar becomes something strange. Colors and textures and clichés play off each other. Everyday artifacts are carefully arranged within the frame, becoming monuments or symbols of a confused nature. I ask myself: What am I selling here? What am I condemning? I am a consumer, too. I crave sugary food that has been marketed to me all my life. I bite and I chew and I swallow what I am given. Modern society is built on overabundance and addiction. This state of anxiety is the starting point for my work, in which I attempt to embrace the tautological regurgitation. After all, I am peddling the fetish.