Stars and Stripes Acid Capsule #4

As a student, Marquis’s visit to the famous Venini glassworks on Murano led to his first project using Venetian glassworking techniques, which was making murrine in the stars and stripes of the American flag. He was the first American artist to interpret these historic techniques through the lense of contemporary culture. In their allusion to the popular hallucinogen, LSD, the Stars and Stripes Acid Capsules were meant to be subversive. Marquis's interest in the flag reflected the political climate in the United States at that time, when American flags were regularly burned and otherwise desecrated. A self-described glassblower and collector of beat-up objects, Marquis has made work that ranges from commentary on contemporary art and folk culture to social, art, and glass history. Like the outsider artists that he admires, his pieces are elements, almost by-products, of an elaborate universe under construction.