SOPHIE TURNER IS STAYING IN TAYLOR SWIFT'S NEW YORK APARTMENT

Height (cm): 100

Width (cm): 50

Depth (cm): 2

Materials: Lipstick on canvas

Date Completed: June 2024

"This work translates a poem I wrote in Oct 2023 into a new medium. I wrote it after a class on political poetry, affected by Frank O’Hara’s ‘Poem [Lana Turner has collapsed!]’. I like his casual, natural mix of the seemingly mundane & major but wanted to invert it with a seemingly mundane event that’s in fact major. Sophie Turner’s divorce/custody battle was in the news at the time & there was discourse around it as an example of deep, lingering patriarchal thinking. Taylor offering her friend a safe haven showed how women resist by banding together."

"I was on the Tube when the poem began rushing through me. I stayed on the line well past my stop to keep writing in my Notes. I chose lipstick for the art piece as 1) it’s an example of owning one’s sexual power (wearing red is a weapon of the siren), 2) It’s a signature of Taylor’s."