Don’t Miss Out – The Controversy wizard is back with a thought provoking collection
If David Lachapelle’s latest exhibition have not been ticked off the to do list yet – go. This series of installation photographs entitled ‘Earth Laughs in Flowers’ exceeds Lachapelle expectations – thought provoking, inspirational, grotesque, humorous and provocative.
The inspiration behind the collection is a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson entitled “Hamatreya” , in which nature sniggers at humans through flowers for their egotism and arrogance at believing they can rule the world, even though they are temporary.
Lachapelle illustrates this through metaphor in his suffocating and lush pieces. He mixes florals with rotting watermelons, discarded Starbucks cups, severed limbs, sex toys, mobile phones, cigarette buts and wine glasses dripping with blood. The different pieces allude to different seasons and stages in life, for example, in ‘Early Fall Flower’ the blooms are drooping. The longer the pieces are viewed, the more fantastically revolting they become, and even more hidden grotesque details are found.
Lachapelle says ‘like the flower we will age and decay, and eventually die…it makes you live your life in a more precious way’.
If immersing yourself in Lachapelle’s work does not convert you from the vain earth wrecker, consumed by consumerism that you are – there’s always Dover Street market across the road for some self-destructing retail therapy.
The exhibition will be at the Robilant and Voena until 24th March.
The London Lassie 