Zena McKeown's Paint Can Ring, which features as part of her Saatchi Gallery Collection, is a tiny piece of perfection: smart, witty, and lovely to look at, it puts to shame many of the expensive artworks displayed in the gallery itself and reinforces my belief that today what really excites our imagination can invariably be found in the gift shop, rather than the main building; that the latter merely serves as an alibi for the former.
In other words, we traipse round art galleries and museums bored out of our skulls, merely because it affords us the opportunity and the pleasure of shopping. Who needs aesthetic transcendence or edification when you can purchase postcards, t-shirts, and novel designer items that brilliantly capture and express who and what we are as a people?
Coincidentally, the ring - in my mind at least - also nicely anticipates the Yves Saint Laurent campaign for Manifesto, featuring Jessica Chastain, that I love so much. Miss McKeown is thus to be commended for not simply being on trend, but ahead of the game with this design.
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