SWEET DECAY

In Sweet Decay, John Black uses the iconography of the 21st century with surgical precision — transforming a crushed Coca-Cola can into a contemporary vanitas. Reimagined as a fragile vase, it holds red flowers that oscillate between beauty and quiet erosion, placing the still life within the context of late capitalism and mass consumption. Layered surfaces of oil and transparent etched acrylic reveal a subtle field of skulls and branded motifs — nearly invisible, yet persistent. These symbols function as a coded memento mori, where luxury and identity dissolve into repetition. The work exposes the violence beneath sweetness: the flower endures, but the vessel is disposable, and the system that sustains it is already in decay.