MARCSTA
 
active Australia 2001

7 Evil men. 2001
stencil
Signed on verso centre in blue fibre-tipped pen, 'MARCSTA'. Not dated. Printed title centrally within image, '7 / EVIL MEN'.
printed image (irregular) 67.3 (h) x 49.0 (w) cm
Gordon Darling Australia Pacific Print Fund 2007
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
NGA 2007.58.7
© Marc de Jong

Marcsta (Marc de Jong) has been on the scene for over two decades and is recognised as a veteran member of a group of Australian artists well known for their skilful execution of the adbust as a way to actively participate with visual culture ‘beyond the consumer drip-feed’. Marcsta’s motivation for busting the mainstream media is to combat what he considers the ‘unbearable, unsustainable terror of disorienting corporate messaging’ with his own ‘simple, non-violent counter-terrorism’.

By taking the logos of large companies and brands, such as Coca-cola, KFC, 7-Eleven and Cold Power which are ‘designed and formulated commerce whose wasteful indulgence is a form of massively funded, distracting social brainwash’, Marcsta has created a series of ‘critiques, de/reconstructions and honest (re)appraisals of post-consumer life’. In his ReAdvertising stickers, the artist skilfully cannibalises the tactics of the mainstream media, disrupting the advertising message to effectively produce a corporate logo-implosion.

In the tradition of the mass-produced print, the creation of artworks that exist as multiples has gained popularity. Stickers, in particular, have become an obsession for many street artists as the perfect, lo-fi, viral means of saturating a city with images and messages.

Jaklyn Babington