2015–2016
Carved Ikea furniture components
Various dimensions

The works in Ikea (Call to Action) feature phrases from the Ikea website and similar home goods retailers. Rather than focus on advertising, as I had in much of my work, I wanted to explore the more subtle language that readers are exposed to merely navigating a website. Generic phrases, like “continue shopping” are a staple of user interface — they seem innocuous and go mostly unnoticed. By removing them from their context and reconfiguring them graphically, the Ikea pieces betray the propagandistic undertones of these little phrases. Detached from a particular product or company, these blunt imperatives become propaganda for the whole system of consumer capitalism.

The material’s shiny veneer is iconic Ikea, but also has precedent in Finish Fetish and other minimalist art movements of the 1960s and ’70s. Working subtractively heightens the sense of revelation and challenges the promises held in the flawless surface.