Art object made of contemporary cosmetics 'Courage'

“Courage” – art object made of contemporary cosmetics. It took me around two weeks to create this one. It weighs 60 kilograms, dimensions: 120 x 70 x 132 centimeters.

July 2017, I’ve received an email from Czech’s The Chemistry Gallery with an offer to create an artwork for one evening international sculpture exhibition during the event called “Porsche Gala Dinner” in Prague. The theme of sculptures selected for the exhibition should connect seemingly unrelated subjects, i.e., sculptures that would be created based on including of contradictions. Selected pieces from the exhibition will be auctioned, and proceeds will be donated to the charity.

So I came up with an idea to create an art object combining horse and lipsticks. The horse symbolizes power, masculinity, and strength: contemporary cosmetics — beauty, grace, and femininity. Embracing the theme of femininity and its’ expression through various forms in art, I’ve decided to merge the opposites into one.

A horse with a lipstick mane

This was not the first time I’m making an art piece out of contemporary cosmetics. While I have used 18’399 lipsticks to make a 3,03-meter Lipstick Tower art object and broke the Guinness World record for largest lipstick sculpture, and used lipsticks to create another art object called “Giant Lipstick.” Also made an art piece of used cosmetics – 1969 colorful nail polish bottles were used to create stained glass “Glass Blowing.”

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Making of art object of made of contemporary cosmetics

That summer I spent by sea, in my home town Klaipeda, Lithuania. My rented apartment was turned into temporary studio for a couple of weeks 🙂

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Event

The Chemistry Gallery was chosen to organise a day-long international exhibition of sculptures to be hosted by Forum Karlín in Prague. Showcasing contradictions was the main theme of the event. So we started selecting the right artists for the job from a huge number of contemporary sculptors. And started to look for sculptures which contain the element of contrast. This strategy has quickly led us to another criterion guiding our selection.
We wanted the pieces to be entertaining and to have enough power to make an impression during just a day-long exhibition. This naturally resulted in our selection of Pop art works. I.e. sculptures which provoke, attract, are easily understood and are well made. This selection criteria resulted in the choice of eight artists from five countries. As a result, those artists have created or provided their work for the occasion and spruced up the Forum Karlín premises. It is clear from the final installation how much art influences our surrounding environment. It is also clear how much can art offer to us if we start surrounding ourselves with it. Probably that attending this event will help you come to the same conclusion.
Petr Hájek
Gallerist
The Chemistry Gallery Curator of the Exhibition