Caroline McCarthyListen to an audio description of The Luncheon
Caroline McCarthy uses installation, video, photography and sculpture in her practice to make witty observations about the nature of consumerism and representation, while engaging with and commenting on historical and traditional notions of art and the artist. The Luncheon is a large scale photograph of a still-life made from wet toilet paper, resulting in a pastiche of 17th-century traditional still-life painting, replete with fruit, vegetables and vanitas-style flies.
‘Colour has no relation to the function of toilet-paper. It’s a tasteful consideration. As the ideas of abundance, excess, desire and consumption have historically been intrinsic to still-life painting, the similar associations of today’s toilet-papers enable it, as material-of-choice, to slip naturally into the traditional still-life mould.’(1)
Born in Ireland in 1971, Caroline McCarthy currently lives and works in London.
Caroline McCarthy was the winner of the Allied Irish Banks (AIB) Award 2001. This work was donated to the Irish Museum of Modern Art by AIB.
1. ‘Irish Museum of Modern Art, The Collection’, IMMA, Dublin, 2005, p.120
