Hadrian Piggot

Hadrian Piggot is a British artist who focuses on sculptural art based on soap. Piggot's use of soap explores the domestic object and its interaction with the body. The use of soap connotes cleanliness and hygiene; it is an object that can transform and elevate the body. Piggott work with soap influenced my exploration with soap as an art object. The use of soap is used to remove dirt but is also a very mindful process. With my practice exploring sexual trauma, the soap was an object to eliminate memory or feeling of being internally dirty after rape. The soap became the object of release from the event as it got rid of the sense of sexual dirt. However, the soap cannot remove the internal feeling of filth after being violated. Piggot carves his quotes into the bar of soap, the act of carving rebrands the soap into its intended purpose. As with his work' Boy, ?, Girl' the soap is coloured in stereotypical colours associated with gender. Piggott's work also comments on gender politics as products are marketed toward different genders through scent or packaging. Piggot removes gendering products' shadow and explicitly states which gender the soap user should use, ironically exposing the idiocy of gendered products. There is also a soap imprinted with a question mark, which again questions the need for gendered products when the only difference between the two is colour. I have not carved into the soap within my practice but printed atop the soaps, with phrases that occurred during the cleansing process after sexual abuse. The font slides off the side of the bars of soap connoting to material and physicality of the soap itself.