Earthquake Pills

'Causing rambunction, throughout the Sphere'
-Busta Rhymes, A Tribe Called Quest, Scenario

Los Angeles based artist Justin Christopherson is pleased to announce Earthquake Pills, a new suite of sculptures and prints. Rooted in the playful animation of Saturday morning 1960s Chuck Jones television cartoons, Earthquake Pills threatens disturbance and unrest. Too many of these things could be a wipe out! In Earthquake Pills this threat is extended to our own bodily consumption of corporate pharmaceuticals such as Ritalin, Prosaic, and other market, FDA sanctioned-safe chemicals. Consumption of pills becomes a practice in maintenance of the body and self. A pill taking routine as remedy. The oversized scale of the pill jar and the berserk energies of the pills themselves point to the dubious scruples of the corporate pharmaceutical industry. Whether earth or human body, these pills are no remedy. The bottle in Earthquake Pills is a vintage glass jar used by pharmacists of a long gone era. The bottle is identifiable as a container of the cure-all wonder drug sort. Can the jar in fact contain the rambunction of these pills? Or Does it just explode?

Beyond the humor of the doomed jar, there is a darker element. The artist states, “I hope within these works there is an underlying pathos. Earth has long been mistreated by its human inhabitants. The best remedy for nature maybe to relieve Earth of its agitators. So the Earthquake Pills are a tongue in cheek remedy for today’s serious environmental problems caused by man. It is a pill for the earth, to cure it of humanities harmful ways.” The sculptures are symbolist warnings to be more responsible for how the earth is used or face extinction while the earth ‘rebalances itself’ via natural phenomena from earthquakes to tsunamis to fires. Humor is the initial reaction, but the viewer will soon come to distrust the destructive pills upon closer inspection.