Slate Quagmier was inspired to make the series while on lockdown and forced to relocate his studio to his small, temporary rental apartment. Working initially from a scavenged piece of plywood, The Present Plague is comprised of one still life painting per month each themed for COVID and for the month in which it was made, and executed in a manner as though the plague ended in the distant past. The usual objects we have become familiar with such as masks and hand sanitizer are accompanied by seasonal items, text, cliché still life objects, and various consumer goods. The products in the paintings, often altered, are forced into supporting a pseudo-narrative in ways that are usually unrelated to their intended functions. Everything is set in typical still life motifs and often accompanied by backgrounds from previous disasters and art history. The result is a series of images that contain a dizzying array of connections between their contents and each other, like the scattered details of a fever dream.
