Artist Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt makes art out of rubbish; such as sweet wrappers, shiny plastics, tin foil, beer cans and all kinds of stuff.
His work “Tender is love among the junk” involves iconography- the decorative culture of the Roman Catholic Church. Woven throughout, too are peices of gay porn and other signifiers of homosexual desire.
The Exhibitions most poignant work is Mysterium Tremendium (late 1980’s) an Instillation of 125 disposable baking pans, the bottoms of which tell a autobigraphical tale in painted pictures and hand written words about a Alter boy, who is beaten by teenage extortionists, who has fallen in love with another boy, he subjects himself to a quasi-sucidal facial cutting and then finds salvation in art. This work is accompanied by a five minute audio track, with different voices reciting the story, like those taking part in high mass.
