Hoodie
original photograph 2009, print 2022
Photo size 30 x 30 cm
Frame size H x W x D 33.5 x 33.5 x 3 cm
Signed edition of 10 + 1 AP

Comprised of a sculpted hooded jumper connected to a hydroponics unit, Richard Nik Evans’s Hoodie broaches abstraction with a multiplicity of cultural references. Using drug paraphernalia as a kind of plinth ― as a foundation for altered perspective, and as a source and receptacle for the endless cycle of dripping water that perspires from the sculpture ― Evans’s sweatshirt is bolstered as a totemic psychological portal. Hanging as a vacant shroud, Evans’s jacket invokes associations to both chav fashion and religious garb. Coated in wax, the draping suggestion of a figure is given a malleable tarry skin, through which embedded tubes emit sweat-like streams of water, creating an image of addiction, suffering, and catharsis. The faint sounds of ‘rain drops’ caused by the precipitous cycle give the piece an air of contemplative sadness.

The final image is contemporary to the work showing, ‘David Cameron in Manchester as Ryan Florence, 17 make a gun gesture.’ The work was made in reference to the contemporary vernacular of hoodie as both a criminal and cultural motif, a fashion symbol and a symbol of protest.