If you consider just how many pills, tablets and capsules are produced each year in the name of medicine, and then imagine how many artists are constantly seeking a new medium with which to work, it’s really no wonder that at least a few of those creative minds have taken the small leap and created Pill Art.
Here are just five of those artists and their unique artwork.
Andy Diaz Hope
Artist Andy Diaz Hope released a brilliant series of artwork entitled Morning After Portraits, all with at least one thing in common: each one has been made using gel capsules. Says Andy of the pictures, “The morning after portraits are portraits of people in front of their medicine cabinets or in their local pharmacies with hangovers, migraines, morning sickness and other maladies self-inflicted or bestowed by nature.”
Mark Kilner
This creepy little sculpture was made in 2007 by Mark Kilner. The piece, entitled ‘NUMBSKULL, is basically a plastic skull covered in 630 ‘extra power’ paracetamol tablets by way of superglue. It brings to mind (presumably that was the intention) Damien Hirst’s ridiculously expensive diamond encrusted skull from the same year but wins the contest due to the pills actually having a potential use.
Linton Meagher
Australian artist Linton Meagher has produced a whole host of work by using medicine capsules, tablets and even scalpels. The two pictures above have been produced by casting hundreds of pills in fibreglass, attaching them to board and then painting them with oils. To see plenty more work from Meagher, visit his personal website here.
Rocky Stroup
Whilst not created using the pills themselves, artist Rocky Stroup made this piece – entitiled ‘Borrowed Time (13 Years of Pill Poppin’)’ – using over 1′000 empty pill bottles. The sculpture has extra meaning for Stroup as the bottles were all collected from personal usage following open heart surgery he had 13 years ago.
Damien Hirst
The first of Damien Hirst’s pill-filled pieces pictured above is called ‘Lullaby Spring’ and features 6,136 painted, bronze cast pills inside a stainless steel cabinet. Prior to selling the piece in 2007, auction house Sotheby’s described it as, “a masterpiece . . . tackling the intrinsic frailty and vulnerability of life”. The cabinet went on to sell for £9.65m, breaking all records before it. A year later, the pill-filled cabinet in the second photo sold for around half that price, with all proceeds going to charity.
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