Hard To Swallow

A mixed media environmental installation

New York State’s breast cancer rates are among the highest in the country. As indicated in an article from The Wall Street Journal, women are presented with ever­changing and contradictory facts. New York State’s daunting numbers of deaths from breast cancer, coupled with the dichotomies surrounding hormone replacement therapy, become increasingly harder and harder to swallow for women.

“Hard To Swallow” is an installation dealing with this subject, where intensely colorful constructs fill the gallery space, immersing the viewer in an expanse of confusing tangles, twists and curves. I take the complications of hormone replacement and translate it into an energetic, thoughtful and almost disturbing sculptural installation. The constructs are surrounded by ceiling­to­floor wall text that, upon exploration, reveals itself to be reprints of “The Physicians’ Desk Reference”, listing the pharmaceutical companies’ hormone replacement pills. The descriptive indications of each pill’s strength, dosage, and color reveal the contextual source for the installation, “Hard To Swallow”. They determine the width, thickness, color and number of additions for each construct.

Each unit is an abstraction of the body’s absorption of a specific hormone pill and is defined by a branding of name and dosage labeling each tablet. The unit’s assembly is proscribed by the pharmaceutical company’s product line; a regimen that requires pills from more than one company; or a pill containing both estrogen and progestin joined with equal doses of different hormones.

The constructs are made from wire, plaster, resin and are painted the color of each pill in latex paint. These appealing candy­like colors chosen by the pharmaceutical companies are as appealing as the positive life­enhancing effects hormone replacement pills offer menopausal women.