This "Make Love, Not War" piece is one of several in a series of mine I call "Ripped Visions." Each ripped vision is based on popular imagery and taken to be totally recreated into another meaning. This concept of redefining highly public visible images originates at least as far back as Andy Warhol's 1962 "Campbell's Soup Can" prints. However, in these modern days the youth of America is constantly bombarded by the media with senseless corporate advertising. Some young artists have reclaimed certain promoted commercial art further than Warhol did by transforming them into symbolic icons. This was a trend in the early 1990's within mostly the electronic dance sub-culture, and I considered myself to have been a part of this art movement.

In this instance I "ripped" a box of Combat roach bait stations, which originally was promoted as having "an egg stopping ingredient." As humans we generally attempt to kill off roaches because they are pests to us, but how might humans be viewed by the rest of Earth's creatures and the natural world? It seems many people take sex and exponential human population growth for granted. I sold stickers and T-shirts with this design as a promotion against accidental pregnancy specifically among the youth because so many of them are driven by the media to engage in sexual relations at ever decreasing ages. I figured it might be better to try and prevent unwanted pregnancy now rather than possibly have humanity be forced to compete for survival in the future by engaging in "combat" amongst itself.