I Love You with My Ford 1961

James Rosenquist made "I Love You with My Ford," which presents an evocative and challenging commentary on American consumerism and the construction of desire in postwar America. Rosenquist’s background in billboard painting profoundly shaped his aesthetic sensibilities. His monumental canvases often juxtapose seemingly unrelated images, mimicking the disjunctive experience of driving past billboards on a highway. Here, the fragmented composition of a Ford, a woman's face, and a pile of spaghetti serves to highlight the emotional landscape of the era, interweaving themes of sexuality, domesticity, and industrialization. The painting invites us to consider the complex ways in which identity is constructed and negotiated within consumer culture. Rosenquist challenges traditional representations and offers an alternative narrative—one that acknowledges the messy, contradictory nature of desire in the modern world. As Rosenquist stated, his works are about “fragments of experience.” This painting is a powerful reflection on the seduction of consumer culture, and its impact on the formation of identity and human relationships.