A Bigger Piece

Joey Terrill, A Bigger Piece, 2008, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2025.5, Image courtesy of the artist, Ortuzar, New York and Marc Selwyn Fine Arts, Los Angeles. Photo: Steven Probert. Artwork © Joey Terrill
Copied Joey Terrill, A Bigger Piece, 2008, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 36 × 60 × 1 1⁄2 in. (91.4 × 152.4 × 3.8 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2025.5, Image courtesy of the artist, Ortuzar, New York and Marc Selwyn Fine Arts, Los Angeles. Photo: Steven Probert. Artwork © Joey Terrill

Artwork Details

Title
A Bigger Piece
Artist
Date
2008
Location
Dimensions
36 × 60 × 1 1⁄2 in. (91.4 × 152.4 × 3.8 cm)
Copyright
Image courtesy of the artist, Ortuzar, New York and Marc Selwyn Fine Arts, Los Angeles. Photo: Steven Probert. Artwork © Joey Terrill
Credit Line
Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
Mediums
Mediums Description
acrylic and mixed media on canvas
Classifications
Subjects
  • Still life — foodstuff — beverage
  • Still life — fruit — watermelon
  • Still life — foodstuff — pie
  • Still life — flower — sunflower
Object Number
2025.5
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2025.5

Artwork Description

A Bigger Piece is from a series of still life paintings Joey Terrill began in 1997, the year he first tested "undetectable" for HIV thanks to new antiretroviral drugs. Looking for a way to express his complicated feelings about surviving into "the age of the AIDS cocktail"--when so many of his friends had not--Terrill found inspiration in the pop-art still lifes of Tom Wesselmann (see below), paintings he felt both celebrate and critique American consumer culture.

Terrill seeks to "Mexicanize and queer-ize" the still-life format. His multilayered paintings include references to the artist's Chicano and gay identities: name-brand HIV medications always appear alongside food and other products arranged on a serape, or Mexican striped blanket.

The objects in A Bigger Piece form a word--can you make out the message encoded by the artist?

 Answer: The word is “LOVE.”