I NEED MONEY FOR A PORSCHE AND CAKES

I NEED MONEY FOR A PORSCHE AND CAKES

Ildze Balcere, 2024
150 × 120 cm
Embroidery, acrylic, mixed media

I Need Money for a Porsche and Cakes brings together humour, desire and unapologetic self-irony in Ildze Balcere’s distinctive visual language.

A monumental female portrait shares the composition with an extravagant cake — symbols of pleasure, aspiration and the freedom to want more. The playful title immediately draws us into the work, while beneath its apparent lightness lies a more subtle conversation about desire, femininity, luxury and our relationship with the things we believe will make us happy.

The work is created through a combination of embroidery, acrylic and mixed media. Balcere’s use of embroidery is particularly significant: a technique historically associated with domestic craft is transformed into a large-scale contemporary artistic language.

The contrast is essential to the work. Its imagery is immediate, bold and distinctly contemporary, while its making is slow, physical and extraordinarily time-intensive. Stitch by stitch, the image becomes an accumulation of hours, patience and manual labour.

Balcere accompanies the work with her characteristic humour:

“I don’t need much — just the very best: warmth of heart and two million dollars… just kidding, of course. Two million dollars would be enough.”