Sarah Lucas is the perfect artist to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale

Her show, “I Scream Daddio”, starts promisingly with Maradona Banana Dream Merchant, a vivid yellow sculpture. The work, with its nine foot phallus and irreverence, speaks initially more of Franz West then Sarah Lucas’ usual vocabulary. Indeed, when I ask her about the artist’s influence she says: “I think of Franz in Venice – when your dad dies (as West did in 2012), it is time to be Daddio”. Maradona is made of resin and painted with a Pantone called Gold Cup. The pavilion itself is painted a similar colour, a strangely bilious yellow that recalls too much custard powder with not enough milk. “It is a cross of custard and eggs”, says Lucas.

Lucas was born on a council estate in London in 1962. Her mother, a cleaner, used to forbid her to do her homework – “They have you all week”, she would say – so unsurprisingly she left school at 16. She eventually took evening classes at a working man’s college before getting into Goldsmiths College to complete a degree in Fine Art in 1987. Goldsmiths in the late 80s was a heady place to study; her fellow artists included Damien Hirst, Angus Fairhurst and Michael Landy amongst many others. In 1988, Damien Hirst included her in his now infamous exhibition ‘Freeze’. “It was at that moment that I realised art is actually contemporary,” said Lucas. “You always think art history is in the past, and suddenly it was now.”

Sarah Lucas, Octopus Spam Plinth, British Pavilion 2015 By 1993 she held her first solo show and her language, a combination of reductive found objects, was becoming recognisable. Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab, as you might guess, involved two fried eggs (freshly made each day) and a kebab (freshly bought each day). Who would have thought that humble everyday objects could become a portrayal of sexuality in the right hands?

In the past, Lucas has been reticent about accepting things. She infamously turned down a Turner prize nomination, not once but twice. Now, she says, “I am happy to be here representing the United Kingdom. It is lovely to be in Venice”. Her nod to Venice includes not only her homage to Franz West – who won the Biennale’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2011 – but also to cats in the works Black Tit Cat Up and Black Tit Cat Down. These pieces still carry the vestiges of her very personal language of ready-mades. They are cast in bronze, so they are not made of the stuffed tights she has used in the past, but they might as well be. Pendulous and allowing gravity to do its work, they evoke the slinky cats of this magical city. 

Sarah Lucas, I SCREAM DADDIO, Installation View, British Pavilion 2015 Sexuality and women are everywhere in the pavilion. Lucas has cast her nine muses, “mates all”, she says, as well as herself, in plaster from the waist down. All of the sculptures are true-to-life and have a cigarette protruding from the ass or fanny. This, she says, “is a fart in the direction of the viewer, a direct challenge to the viewer. I used it in a previous work and people turned away”.

Lucas’ gallerist Sadie Coles is amongst the muses. Seeing the dapper Coles here as “Sadie”, complete with cast, cigarette and concrete toilet, I marvel at the trust between sitter and artist. Some of the casts are draped over furniture, some like Sadie are hunched over a toilet. “All the furniture is my furniture. I have nothing in the house at the moment,” says Lucas, snorting with infectious laughter. “I like that personal connection”. Nothing is more personal then exposing her private parts and those of her friends, and Lucas carries it off with panache. The press preview is crammed with proud collectors including, perhaps the proudest, the Melekis, who tell me that Lucas would often come over and use their shower after doing her casting. If the clamour to get the work is anything to go by, Lucas has a success on her hands.

Sometimes Lucas gets it wrong – I personally am not convinced by the cigarettes – but when she gets it right, her work reminds us about what it is to be human. With her own particular personal shorthand of found objects – eggs, fruit, cigarettes – and her lightness of touch, she can transform the banal into the resonant. An early, now iconic work, Au Naturel (1994), composed of a cucumber, two oranges, a melon and a bucket arranged on a slumped stained mattress still says more about sex and the human condition then endless polished stone ever could. In Venice, Washing Machine Fried Egg, composed of a washing machine and yellow paint, is fun and lively, with a nod to Pop art.

When asked if she is a feminist, Lucas replies: “I regard this as a show for women, I am a woman, I wanted to make it a strong feminine show”. And she has done so. I for one am proud to be a woman here in Venice, with a woman artist representing my country, with what may well turn out to be the strongest national pavilion of the Biennale.

Sarah Lucas, “I Scream Daddio”, the British Pavilion, 56th Venice Bienale, Venice opens 9 May and continues until 22 November

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