Penalty Kick is an environmental poster that sets two suffocating moments beside each other: the held breath before a penalty kick, and the polluted air we now live inside.
The image
You are looking through the goalkeeper. The pressure of the penalty is there — a whole stadium narrowed down to twelve yards — and so is the absurd necessity of the gas mask he is wearing in order to stand there at all. One line holds the two together: Suffocating penalty. Suffocating reality.
Grey smog fills the frame, and the vivid green of the pitch survives only as a reflection in the goggles of the mask. That reflection is doing the work. It is the only living colour left in the picture, and it is second-hand. The dark purple of the mask against the grey carries the weight of the reality, while the brightness of the green keeps the warning from being easy to ignore.
Why paint it
I could have made this as a game. I have made almost everything else as a game. But a penalty is a still moment — one frozen second in which nothing has happened yet and everything is about to. Watercolour is unforgiving in the same way. You get one pass at the wash. You cannot take it back.
It felt right that a piece about a decisive moment should be made in the medium that does not let you undo the moment.
Details
- Title — Penalty Kick
- Year — 2025
- Medium — Watercolour on watercolour paper
- Dimensions — 39.3 × 54.5 cm
- Artist — Ryan Lee