Hayden Kays
Eat, Sleep, Pollute, Repeat
2018 It's Not Easy Being Green
Hayden Kays
Medium:
Photograph typography composite
Displayed:
Across the UK and Brazil 7 Oct - 10 Nov
Artwork Description:
Eat, Sleep, Pollute, Repeat hijacks the rhythm of the familiar rave chant “Big fish, little fish, cardboard box” and subverts it with a gut-punch of environmental truth. Floating like a ghost in the ocean, the plastic bag mimics marine life – an eerie imposter that kills what it imitates. The line “Big fish, little fish, plastic bag” is simple, catchy and devastating. It highlights how deeply pollution has infiltrated nature, replacing the organic with the synthetic, and the living with the lethal.
Artist's Comment:
It’s Not Easy Being Green feels less like a slogan and more like a grim understatement. We’re bombarded with eco-anxiety while presidents fly private jets to sustainability summits. Greenwashing is everywhere. Responsibility is pushed onto individuals, while corporations continue polluting on an industrial scale. Trying to live sustainably often feels like swimming against a tide of convenience and hypocrisy. And yet, there’s something stubbornly hopeful about those who keep trying. Every small act, every creative intervention, every refusal to look away adds up. It may not be easy being green, but it’s necessary. This is our home. Our only home.
Bio:
Hayden Kays (b.1985, London) is a celebrated British artist known for his sharp–witted fusion of Pop art and street culture. Working across painting, sculpture and printmaking, Kays draws on a rich visual lexicon from 1950s Pop icons to Young British Artists, infusing his work with acerbic wordplay, deadpan humour and a striking sense of cultural timing. His pieces often blend irreverence with sincerity, inviting the viewer to laugh, then linger. With a bold, uncompromising voice, Kays critiques the absurdities of modern life while celebrating its contradictions.
