Our Favourite Legal Drug
Latte as a mirror: everyday obsession dressed as luxury—coffee, reimagined in paint, where ritual and dependence blur into a single, glittering cup.
Coffee doesn’t just wake people up. It keeps the world moving—and it’s been a business for centuries.
Three things make it fascinating as an art subject:
- It’s addictive. Caffeine is a psychoactive drug. Everyone knows it, but because it’s legal, the obsession is framed as normal, even aspirational.
- It’s expensive. Coffee can get costly—but demand never slows. People will pay almost anything for their daily fix.
- It’s ritualised. The latte isn’t just a drink—it’s a lifestyle symbol, a comfort object, a shared obsession.
That’s why I’ve been working on this piece: a modern echo of Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans, but swapped for today’s universal consumer fix—made obvious by the sheer number of cafes everywhere. The image of a whipped-cream-topped iced coffee sits somewhere between pop icon and cultural mirror: luxury, necessity, and dependency all in one.
Takeaway: The most comforting drug might be the one we celebrate every morning.
