The United States of Excess

The United States of Excess examines American wealth culture through a grotesque, multisensory sculptural form. Drawing from traditions of political satire, abject aesthetics, and social critique, the work presents a gold-coated creature whose swollen body and gaping mouth visualize the consequences of unchecked consumption. The wrinkled gold surface, glittering embellishments, and sagging anatomical folds evoke both the allure and decay inherent in the aesthetics of luxury.

The integrated audio amplifies sounds of slurping, chewing, and swallowing, extending the work beyond visual spectacle into an embodied critique. This soundscape transforms the interior cavity of the mouth into a resonant chamber of appetite, emphasizing the relentless and ongoing nature of American consumption. Through its combination of reflective materials, bodily form, and disquieting sound, the sculpture confronts viewers with the contradictions of the contemporary American mythos: abundance as identity, opulence as virtue, and excess as a national ideal.

Positioned within broader conversations in contemporary sculpture, the work engages themes of political grotesque, material excess, and the performance of power. The United States of Excess becomes both an icon and a warning, mirroring the cultural machinery that produces and consumes its own spectacle.