What a Bitch

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, 100 Parliament Street

This print combines two apparently conflicting statements. ‘Say it with flowers’ would normally suggest a person giving a bunch of flowers either as an apology or as a mark of affection. ‘What a bitch’ on the other hand is an overtly derogatory comment. What makes Donald Urquhart’s screenprint amusing is that the block capital letters of the second, insulting, remark are in fact filled with drawings of small flowers. ‘What a bitch’ is literally said in flowers.

Writer, performer and artist Donald Urquhart was born in 1963 in Dumfries, Scotland. He moved to London in 1984 and started collaborating with performance artist and fashion designer Leigh Bowery. Urquhart embraced Bowery’s drag-performance world and set up the underground club night The Beautiful Bend, which he ran throughout the 1990s. Interest in the imagery and artwork for the flyers, illustrated booklets, and posters for this club has resulted in a number of exhibitions of Urquhart’s darkly humorous pen and ink drawings. As an artist, Urquhart has exhibited widely with work included in group exhibitions such as The Black Album, at Interim Art, London (2004), Publish & Be Damned, Cubitt, London (2004) and I Still Believe in Miracles, Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2005). He was nominated for Becks Futures prize in 2005.

Places

Subjects

text-based work, flower

Materials & Techniques

screenprint

Artist

Donald Urquhart (1963 - )

Title

What a Bitch

Portfolio Title

Studio Voltaire Print Portfolio 2006

Edition

45/70

Date

2006

Medium

Screenprint on Somerset paper

Dimensions

height: 42.00 cm, width: 29.70 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Studio Voltaire, June 2007

Inscription

verso, lr: 45/70 Donald / Urquhart

Provenance

Studio Voltaire, London

GAC number

18126/7