I Licked It So It’s Mine! – Esther Gamsu, Maria Wrang-Rasmussen, Evelyn Cromwell, Isabella Clark and Oscar Robinson

Votive Gallery are delighted to kick off a fantastic year of exhibition programming with I Licked It So It’s Mine! at Wasps Patriothall.

This delectable show is made up of an ensemble cast of young artists from across the UK working with humour and irreverent materials. Through moving image, drawing, sculpture and unconventional painting, the artists push outlandish concepts to their limits and watch them collapse.
A whimsical energy can be found throughout the show. Evelyn Cromwell’s deconstructed sandwich chair bypasses divisions between design and art, drawing parallels between processed food and flat-pack furniture. Oscar Robinson indulges napkin mathematics in a hand-drawn pitch for a house made entirely from DVDs. Backed by a cheesy soundtrack, the speculative structure embraces its own ridiculousness with a strangely moving earnestness. There is an awareness and subversion of the gestalt in the use of these everyday materials – common objects riff on their recognisability. As the visitors look and look again, interpretations stick out like tongues. This mischievous spirit is at the heart of all the works in I Licked it So it’s Mine!

A line of thinking throughout the show comments on fan culture and pop consumption. Esther Gamsu’s sculptures litter the floor, like a dancehall where everyone has shuffled out of their shoes. At once comical and ghostly, they pose mid-movement as if rudely interrupted. The animations of Isabella Clark follow looping love letters to Al Pacino, leading us on a journey through obsession. Maria Wrang-Rasmussen’s edible paintings take ideas of consumption even more literally, tempting and taunting the visitor to indulge in iconophagy. Works like these toy with our desire to participate personally in the pop culture we love, even as it eludes us.

Sarcasm and irony sit beside genuine glimmers of excitement and frivolity. I Licked it So it’s Mine! poses the question: why is humour in art not nearly as revered as seriousness? Votive Gallery has decided to make their first show of 2025 a celebration of young artists seeking to find the fun in contemporary culture and turn the absurdity of everyday life back on itself.