Heidi Cody: Suggested Retail Value

The relentless barrage of ads, logos, billboards and junk food around us is so normal that we often don’t notice it anymore. The best shock for this “consumer coma” is a visual sleight of hand called cognitive dissonance. Operating undercover, Cody’s artwork has viewers unwittingly assess overexposure to consumerism. She needles the flash and glass of corporate marketing by using commercial looking lit signs and high gloss plastics. Additionally, Cody creates sculptures and drawings featuring isolated elements of famous American brands.

In her bodies of work titled American Alphabet, Crude, Special Delivery, and Work Force, Cody aggressively edits logos of American companies and products, retaining just enough information to cue consumer recognition. Graphic and abstract, the images draw viewers into the addictive game of guessing each piece.

Presented in Suggested Retail Value there are a combina­tion of this graphic works from 2000-2004, and recent and current works, which are an idiosyncratic exploration of “spokescritter hats,” or hats of famous trademark characters. Her most recently completed piece, Mutiny Aboard the Cutty Sark is a kinetic sculpture in which the Aaargh! Treacherous Cap’n Morgan and his thievin’ Chips Ahoy! pirates have seized the mighty Cutty Sark whiskey clip­per, and are commandeerin’ her straight towards no good.