Enjoy Life - Acrylic/oil on canvas.

This is a painting I decided to start after picking up a book called ’Street Knowledge’ which features street artists and movements. I started reading it as I’ve never particularly looked into street art subculture, but I admire the idealogy that is behind it.
I believe street art is often dismissed as immature or low brow (or as a one man movement invented by Banksy?) and this is exactly why I wanted to learn from it.

I became particularly interested in a movement the book referred to as ‘culture jamming’, or ‘brandalism’. It’s described as ‘one of the more exciting and ingenious elements of street culture’ and is basically the idea that people can respond to advertisements that are forced into our lives, by personally responding to them/altering them. 
 
One community, on the website areyougeneric.org promote the artistic side to culture jamming. It is a group who counteract unethical corporations, censorship and biased media, and the website says their heroes are ‘discussion, independent thought and creation’. After spending some time reading about the ideas behind their creations, I decided to do a similar piece.
 
I took inspiration from a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary on the Coca Cola company which was aired a few years ago, about how unethical the company actually is. Despite Coca Cola being one of the most iconic and successful brands throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the documentary uncovered how the corporation exploit both workers and nearby citizens of the factories, have a history of strong racism (to the point where Martin Luther King urged people not to buy Coca Cola products!) were involved in nazism, and have caused significant environmental damage to poorer countries. However despite these past and current crimes and violations, the perception of the Coca Cola company is still one of happiness and freedom.
 
After watching this documentary, I was in such a rage that I made an effort to boycott Coca Cola and other Coca Cola Co. products, and did successfully for three years… However, it’s quite a difficult thing to do!

I wanted to directly reference some of Coca Cola’s slogans (‘The Coke side of life’, ‘Enjoy Coca Cola’ etc)  into my  piece, but wasn’t quite sure how to until I was brainstorming while listening to Icelandic band ‘Dead Skeletons’. Dead Skeletons play dark rock ‘n’ roll with a spiritual twist. Their songs take inspiration from esoteric sayings from Tibetan dancers, and their artwork and lyrics are full of quotations from old philosophers.
In the track ‘Dead Mantra’, there is one line repeated throughout; ‘He who fears death can not enjoy life’. In my mind, this fitted perfectly.

I decided to have this line painted in Coca Cola’s own image; White wording with the iconic firetruck red background. I painted the background more disheveled and deteriorated, representing the struggles and hardships faced by those who have suffered to such a huge coporation, and I capitalised the words ‘Enjoy Life’, to draw the similarity to the Coca Cola slogans and add a wee bit of sarcasm to the piece. 
 
Being informed and questioning the practices of advertising multinational corporations and teaching others that it’s okay to do so is an important part of modern society. 

Ironically, I’m going to end this with a quote on advertisers/culture jamming from Banksy: 
 
”Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw  at your head.

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.” — Banksy