Self Branding

 Colin Self’s etching, Nesting Birds in an Oak Tree, is exactly what it says on the tin. Or is it? Self has incorporated a found object – in this case a plastic lid bearing the Nestlé logo – and, as is common of the Pop Art movement, transferred it from its known context into something new. But here lies another twist: the logo is in fact three nesting birds – a nod to the Nestlé family tree and the surname’s roots*. By placing the object within the tree, the Nestlé birds are plucked from the corporate environment of the world’s largest food group (+ its multiple branches) and reunited with their natural habitat in a surprising and visually striking way.

Other allusions to mass culture are found in Baked Beans, Republic of Maldives Tuna and The Waiter – the last of which is drypoint on microwave oven cardboard.

But Self's art is so much more than playful references. It was the late Richard Hamilton who called Self "the best draughtsman in England since William Blake."

Labels don’t get much better than that.

To find out more, have a look for yourself.  

 *'Nestlé' meaning a small bird's nest in a southern German dialect.