Great Dates

"The artist herself appears in 'Great Dates' (1992), photographed wearing a leather jacket and with cropped hair that makes her look like a street-wise boy. She is eating a banana, but the gesture is transformed into an assertion of female sexuality, on its own terms. 'With only minor adjustments, a provocative image can become confrontational converted from an offer of sexual service into a castration image.' Pages from 'The Sunday Sport' newspaper, collaged onto board, form the backdrop to this act of reclamation. Gleaned from the newstand, these pages of naked flesh show how the idea of woman-as-a-sexual-toy is confirmed each day for thousands of men. 'I don't take pornography as my subject; I take the acceptable stuff available at 25p - common currency, rather than the deviant or marginal,' Lucas explains." (S. Kent, 'Young British Artists II', London 1993).