Love

Visual expressions of love proliferate on social media sites such as Instagram and Pinterest. Centred around the purchase and arrangement of decorations for Valentine’s Day events, these images are exuberant, celebratory, joyful and fun. Masses of gleaming foil balloons in the form of love hearts and declarations - Love, XO, Be Mine - are disarmingly charming, yet ultimately ephemeral. These perfectly styled Valentine party scenes, in luscious pink and vivid blood red, with their connotations of excess and indulgence, also evoke more complicated emotions. We know the romantic ideal of love, popular in social media, falls short of real love. We also know that events like Valentine’s Day can heighten feelings of rejection, loneliness and isolation. Finally, we know our inordinate love of consumption has led us to a world on the brink of environmental disaster. Despite this, we cannot seem to break the cycle of desire, where too much is never enough. In my Valentine’s Day scenes, tinged with humour and pathos, the decorations have been abandoned; the party cancelled before it begins.