Artist couple (they’re married and collaborators), sculptor Lauren Was and painter Adam Eckstrom, make art covered in losing lottery tickets from around the globe.
They collage the tickets in patterns over objects they build/sculpt, such as this lottery ticket Hummer.
They chose a Hummer because many people who win the lottery run out and buy a car. It’s like getting 3 wishes from a Jeanie in a bottle, and people buy a home, a car, or maybe a boat.
Later the couple moved to Beijing for a while, and they were startled to see so many Lamborghinis on the streets. Ah, the new ultra rich in China haven’t gotten over the tastelessness of ostentatious public displays of their wealth yet. (Note: China = #2 buyer of Lamborghinis in the world after the US.) Probably will when everyone else stops fawning over their glory. So what do the artist’s do, they make a lottery ticket Lamborghini.
These guy’s stuff is pretty cool in my book. Kinda’ reminds me of the “horror vacui” (fear of empty space) aesthetic of a couple of Indian restaurants I used to go to in Manhattan. They were one above the other, and small, so created a sense of space by covering all the walls with mirrors and putting decorations absolutely everywhere. From a distance their art has patterns, but as you get closer they become complexly layered shards of illustration, text and images.
In their more recent work they’ve got off the “dream” theme but continue to make stuff out of disposable adverts or things like baseball cards. They made one giant collage completely from baseball cards of the Cleveland Indians, and used as their inspiration for the design patterns of native Americans indigenous to the Cleveland area. I used to collect baseball cards when I was a kid, so naturally I appreciate that one.
Lauren and Adam made more interesting work in Nevada from business cards for “prostitutes” (I think “sex workers” is the PC terminology these days) which they arranged in more sensuous configurations.
Whether or not one gets into their ideas or rational behind the work – some peeps on Youtube couldn’t handle it and lashed out – it’s pretty cool stuff. You just can’t go too wrong making a full-sized car out of cardboard, and then covering the whole thing in tiny lottery tickets, themselves of different dimensions and designs.
Below is a nice video about the artists:
~ Eric Kuns
Art & Crit by Eric Wayne 
Hello, I came across this site because I’m trying to trace down a half remembered quote by maybe Camus or Nietzsche, something like ‘art is our discarded dreams perfected and reflected back to us.’
Do you know it? Is your title a reference to it?
Cheers.
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I don’t know this quote. I didn’t base the title on it. Interesting though.
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