Two Deconstructed Cups

While Tepper was working on his Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Washington, in Seattle, he “liberated” a mass-produced, diner-style coffee cup from the student union. He became obsessed with the cup and all it symbolized: conversations over coffee, pleasant or difficult; the late-afternoon pick-me-up; the repeated use, washing, and eventual damage of these everyday objects. He squished, slashed, and sanded his cups to give a sense of the acceleration of time and use, without any pretense of function or scale. His manipulation of form allows the cups to be recognizable while also possessing a sense of animation, personality, and accumulated experience.