Project 22: Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab (the artwork of Sarah Lucas)

This task is to consider the work of the artists Sarah Lucas and to note any references to the theories that have been discussed so far on the course. 

Sarah Lucas was of the ‘Young British Artists’ that emerged on the art scene in the 1990s. Working in a variety of mediums, her works mainly consists of self-portraits; she critiques life as a woman in the modern world. 

In the early 1990s, Lucas began using furniture as a substitute for the human body. Through her career, Lucas has continued to appropriate everyday materials (including, for example, freshly made fried eggs) to make works that use humour, visual puns and sexual metaphors of sex, death, Englishness and gender.

The artworks I will consider are: Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab, Self Portrait with Fried Eggs, Eating a Banana, Au Naturel and Get Hold of This.

Lucas, S. 1992. Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab.

It is clear from the representational display of the female form in Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab that it is ironic; the woman is transformed into commodities. She is something to be possessed and, through the use edible products (i.e. the eggs, the kebabs), to be also consumed. Part of her is literally a piece of meat. This links with Project 21 – images of women – as this is a parody of the film nude; she transformed by our gaze into objects.

Lucas, S. 1996. Self Portrait with Fried Eggs. [Inkjet print on paper] London: Tate Collection.

The image of Fried Eggs becomes a motif. In Self Portrait with Fried Eggs the humour of the eggs replacing breasts is continued; though now it is juxtaposed with the actual female form. Lucas’s androgynous appearance – the short hair, t-shirt and ripped jeans – and open posture supports the irony of picture.  Could the mirror phase be attached to this picture? She seems not to align herself with the mother in this image but instead defies.

Lucas, S. 1994. Au Naturel.

Humour and irony continues. Au Naturel deconstructs the sexual act. Like Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab, genitals are replaced with commodities; they are replaced by signs. The union of two individuals is signified in a single double mattress. This has a relationship with the previous section, ‘Signs and Symbols’ and could be applied to Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab. 

Lucas, S. 1990. Eating a Banana. [Inkjet print on paper] London: Tate Collection.

Eating a Banana ironically comments on castration anxiety explored in Project 17. Lucas is again androgynous. She gazes indifferently at the spectator and with her image already challenges the male gaze. She eschews the phallic symbol by her biting of the banana directly threatens castration. Does her challenge fail due to a possible hegemony of false-consciousness allowed women in Western patriarchal society? Clearly she is challenging Berger’s argument in Project 21.