In a blend of playfulness and provocation, Eat You Eat Me offers an exploration of coexistence, consumption, and the intricate dynamics between humans and the natural world. The series is comprised of individually hand-painted boxes, each of which originally contained canned seafood. Layered with phrases like “wild cockles,” “extra virgin,” “lightly smoked,“ “sustainably caught,” and “hand-packed,” reenvisioned human figures appear in a full spectrum of skin colors, a multitude of diverse origins also present in The World Is Your Oyster, Orgy Pillows, and Thrill and Sorrow, in an array of poses ranging from mischievously childlike to languidly seductive.
In a confluence with Rogers’s larger body of work, numerous personas from the GODOG series are represented. These include the Pussy Buddha, a forward-looking, sexually actualized incarnation of the Venus motif, along with gender-fluid and phallic-headed forms. Conveying an impression at once engrossing and disturbing, other human figures appear as fragmented bodies, with absent heads or cleanly detached and scattered limbs. These figures appear in a state that might be perceived as a playful reinvention of anthropomorphization or as cross-species kinship with the oysters, sardines, and other sea animals for whom the boxes are intended.
With characteristic humor and nuance, Rogers threads a line between explicit and implicit ideations. The focal point of the boxes, along with recurring references to their tightly packed contents, implies an object to be unpacked. This presentational twist calls to mind the box art of Lucas Samaras, with its multi-layered implications and nuanced structures and Henry Taylor’s paintings on cigarette boxes. While evading rigidly proselytic interpretations, the series is clearly informed by the aquaculture status quo: unlike terrestrial creatures, sea animals are measured by weight rather than unit, and aquarium pets are rarely given a burial as dignified as their mammalian counterparts. Yet Rogers seems keen on blending the concepts of casualty and causality, acknowledging her own entrenchment in the practice of consumption: “I’d wake up in the middle of the night and paint, and this is what I would eat. As humans, the experience of being alive, even creating something, always has an element of destruction.”
Rogers’s intentionality extends to the series’ presentation, which deliberately compiles small, individuated paintings and objects (redolent of the Neo-Dada minutiae of Tetsumi Kudo) into an expansive, immersive display extending nearly two stories in height. Ultimately, Eat You Eat Me is both humorous and harmonious, confrontational and coy, an intimate glimpse of convergence, consumption, and creation. —Amanda Miller