365 - A year in cups by Gwyneth Leech -
"I discovered what a great surface for drawing a paper cup is,’ she says. 'It’s very matt, very stiff and takes all kinds of materials, such as watercolours and gouache, very well. I became fascinated with drawing all the way around the cup."
Gwyneth Leech only paints on used cups, either her own or those kept for her by friends; avoiding waste through art. The cups are preserved through an encaustic process, similar to what the Romans used to preserve artwork on tombs, after working on them with gouache, watercolour, oil paint or Faber-Castell art pens. The cups are graphic and colourful, depicting street scenes, people, architecture or park landscapes. On the base of every cup, along with her signature, she writes the date, location, occasion and beverage consumed, so that each cup becomes a record of a social moment. The store Anthropologie invited Leech to create an exhibition similar to Hypergraphia [a previous exhibition in New York] working in the brands store window for five days in front of the public eye.