About

I made the screen print of “Giant Worship” in late 1997 when I was first learing how to use Adobe Illustrator. The hands are an illustration I cut out of Rubylith with an X-acto knife. I then scanned the hands illustration and composed them in front of the icon face in a way I thought was successful. The frame and text were added in Illustrator. I was fascinated with the psychology behind worship, whether the deification was based in religion, rock stardom, celebrity, politics, or any other cult that promoted euphoric allegiance. Obviously, using a word like OBEY rather than “rejoice” or something else positive, gives a more cautionary and sinister slant to the image, especially when coupled with the ominous Icon Face and word GIANT. The idea was to discourage people from worshipping or obeying blindly. The print is full-bleed on marigold yellow paper because I was looking for a paper close in color to the mustard yellow I often printed as a background in my prints from that era. I bought the paper based on an online swatch, and when it arrived the yellow had a green cast I didn’t like. I used the paper for this print and one or two others, but the color always irritated me. I guess a silver lining is that I wanted my prints to be a bit irritating to people… and with this one I could empathize.
-Shepard