Take Me
Contains real prescription medication (olanzapine 10mg).
Artist Statement
Painted canvas with a mottled, weathered field of olive green, mustard, and dark umber, poured and splattered so it reads like lichen or moss on an old wall. Across it, white olanzapine 10mg tablets glued in block letters spell TAKE ME. A crumbled Olanzapine Tablets USP 10mg prescription label is glued in the lower right corner beside the ME, torn and wrecked, barcode strip hanging off it.
The label does the work up front: a viewer reads "Olanzapine 10mg" before they even parse the letters, and then TAKE ME lands because they know exactly what is being taken. The drug commands itself. Clinical white against organic decay, the same tension the whole series runs on.
The ME sits slightly off center under TAKE. It was glued during the piece's raw phase and left as is. Hand-placed pills on a rough surface, lichen does not align to a grid.
Intent: internal resistance vs external command. My mind telling me not to, while everyone around me, including the pills themselves, says take them.
Third piece in the medication series: Starting Over (the acute night), Just Fucking Sleep (the chronic years), Take Me (the instruction).