PICK UP THE PIECES by Frank Willems.
Year: 2020
Size: 36×36 cm
Materials: Acrylic, marker on canvasboard
In this powerful and provocative artwork, the boundary between lust, obsession, and exhaustion is explored. A bed, the ultimate stage of passion and surrender, is scattered with the broken bodies of a masked couple. Their intense union has literally shattered them into pieces – a visual metaphor for the exhausting repetition of desire and the question: when is it too much?
The text PICK UP THE PIECES hangs like an almost inevitable call above the scene. Is it a reminder to restore what has been broken, or rather a confrontation with the fragmentation of our desires? The words raise the question of whether, in our pursuit of pleasure, we lose ourselves, until only loose fragments remain – a symbolic imprint of all that we have been in the chase for the unattainable.
Inspired by a provocative newspaper headline about extreme sexual endurance and the iconic funk track by Average White Band, this piece plays with the tension between physical intensity and emotional alienation. The mask highlights the anonymity of lust, the role one plays in the search for pleasure, and the distance between the real person and the desire that drives them.
With humor, absurdity, and a touch of melancholy, PICK UP THE PIECES challenges the viewer to reflect on the boundaries of desire – and what remains of us when those boundaries are crossed.
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