Maisie Cousins' "Rubbish 2" bursts with vivid colors, featuring a striking contrast between a blue plastic bag and the lush textures of decaying flowers and insects. The composition captures the chaotic beauty within decay, blending natural elements into a disorderly yet mesmerizing scene. Her photographic style combines hyper-realism with surrealism, emphasizing texture and vibrancy. Through this work, Cousins challenges societal norms around beauty and waste, urging viewers to find allure in the typically repugnant. ...
Maisie Cousins’ photographic practice marries beauty and disgust, interweaving food, trash, flesh, insects and decay into a kaleidoscopic world of colour. Seeing things through Cousins’ eyes takes us into a bright and saturated Wonderland of toys, icecream, lips, stomachs and tongues, smears of lipstick, jelly and juice. It’s our bins, sinks and childhood bedrooms visualised by Barbie, coloured in by toddlers. It’s glorious, nauseating, glossy and stunning. Cousins’ compositions take us into a fever dream journey through a visceral, grotesque circus show. Her practice encourages us to let go of our societally imposed niceties, to eat in the nude, to spill, to smear, to befriend the trails of ants on the plate of dessert from the other night that we left on our floor. Be dirty, be trashy, be happy and be beautiful, all at the same time. ...
