2025

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2025 paintings

Index of paintings by Stephen Gibb

2025 paintings

Graduate of the University of Windsor School of Visual Arts – BFA 1985

Canadian painter Stephen Gibb is known for his vibrant Pop Surrealism oil paintings and his commissioned work with the music industry. His bright mashups of iconic characters often address the existential issues and anxieties of contemporary society, which are contrasted by moments of joy and transcendence. “We are reared on nursery rhymes and fairy tales, so why not extend those lessons and conventions into more adult-based themes?” says Gibb. His paintings offer a chance for the viewer to ignite their own creativity and construct their own narrative –¬¬ informed by their personal experiences and the associations they may derive from the imagery.
Familiar to millions around the globe his artwork is indelibly linked to the album art of hip hop artist Trippie Redd and to some degree, British singer/songwriter Hope Tala, a favourite of Barak Obama.

Windsor painter, Stephen Gibb, is consumed by the magic and mystery of art — the magic found in the uncanny visceral and cognitive impact that art has on us; the mystery being the unknowable, open-ended aspect that draws us into the artwork and into ourselves. Fascinated by figurative language and abstract concepts that are transformed into literal images, his allegorical and symbolic nature explores neuroscience and the science of vision and colour to enhance his signature level of visual overload. A student of Surrealism, cartoons and psychedelic art, Gibb has found himself an adopted member of the Pop Surrealism, Lowbrow artists

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CLICK FOR FULL VIEW — Take an Hour and Contemplate Your Ego – 2023 Stephen Gibb, 96″ x 48″, oil on panel.

The story behind Stephen Gibb’s Pop Surrealism Lowbrow painting: Take an Hour and Contemplate Your Ego.

Pop Surrealism Lowbrow Painting Explores the Ego

The Concept: The Gaze of the Long Now

Over the years, Stuart Brand, co-founder and editor of the Whole Earth Catalog has founded several organizations, of which the Long Now Foundation has significant relevance to my project. The Long Now Foundation aims to promote “slower/better” thinking as a counterpoint to what it views as today’s “faster/cheaper” mindset.

Adopting a similar “slower is better” attitude, I undertook a career-long ambition in 2023 to create an artwork that demands to be approached slowly and deliberately, in a quiet, contemplative frame of mind. With the idea of inviting the viewer to devote a considerably longer amount of time engaged with the painting than our at-a-glance culture is used to, I’m challenging one of the very cornerstones of our on-demand, drive-thru, overnight-delivery, instant-gratification society. Our need for speed may be flawed.

In my art practice, it is in these quiet, contemplative moments that the most fertile inspiration comes from. Getting there is the first step — far removed from the doom scroll of the mobile phone, the opinion-as-truth news media and the endless stream of social media noise. I was struck by an exhibit I had several years ago, how most people just breezed by, maybe politely pausing for a few seconds at each painting, yet others would stand for 15 minutes and immerse themselves into the artwork. Which begs the question: What was the connection they made that the others didn’t?

Were they able to view the art in a quiet state, already removed from the impulse and pull of their conditioning, governed by the perpetual quest of “what’s next”? When we live in a culture that constantly inundates us with information from the outside, how can we even take time to process it, let alone access our own information that is generated from the inside? My painting aims to create a situation where the viewer can reconnect with that inner self and refamiliarize themselves with the beauty of their own imagination.

The second motivation was to create a painting so compelling that it couldn’t be ignored. The irony is not lost on me — taking on such an ego-centric project, which is centred thematically on the ego seems a bit lofty and pretentious but is one supported by neuroscience. Brain scans of people confronting an overwhelming or confusing image light up like fireworks, their minds “jumpstarted” as they try to make sense of what they see. Entering this Gamma wave state of mind is where peak concentration and optimal information processing takes place. Human nature fundamentally compels us to extract meaning from things that confound us, especially when the message is not readily apparent or spoon-fed. The scale and complexity of the painting at the very least demands a more than cursory glance from even the most jaded of art connoisseurs.

Take an Hour and Contemplate Your Ego

Employing my standard approach to painting, which is often referred to as Pop Surrealism Lowbrow the title of the artwork is also the subtitle of the proposed exhibit — The Gaze of the Long Now: Take an Hour and Contemplate Your Ego.

Using the “ego” as the anchor for what the content of the painting examines, I employ an allegorical and symbolist approach of connecting images to convey the concepts chosen for the subject. Not always apparent, the images have a bifurcating effect, leading the viewers down their own pathways and rabbit holes of exploration and comprehension. Just like an “apple” means something different to every person — you may think of computers, the Beatles, William Tell, Snow White, grandma’s pies, etc. — so is the power of any image. Allowing yourself to follow those associations and linkages in your own self-discovery, is the real connecting force and magic of art.

The ego is represented in a raw psychological form as understood in my own naïve way, viewed through many facets of pop culture and aspects of the human experience. The broad concepts are encrypted in imagery that transforms the figurative into the literal.

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Pop Surrealism Lowbrow Painting Explores the Ego

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Art Comp 2023 — Show your Support!

“Essence of Hope and Despair” — Stephen Gibb, oil on panel, 2021

This painting is 1 of 100 artworks vying for the ART COMP 2023 prize. I am looking for support from friends and followers. Please consider voting for my painting today! To vote for this work visit the online voting site (https://artcomp.awardsplatform.com/) or visit Art Comp 2023 in person at 100 Kellogg Lane in London ON

Stephen Gibb at the Art Comp 2023 opening night event

Essence of Hope and Despair, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel by Stephen Gibb, 2021

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About the painting:

Tapping into the realm of psychology, the surface of water is the threshold between the air and the depths but also represents levels of consciousness and awareness. The skull has penetrated the surface and is entering the murky depths where unseen and unknown things dwell. The vicious-looking fish lurks about in a threatening manner…the psychoanalytic submarine searches for meaning, while a submerged rock mound echoes the strongholds that pierce the surface like island totems — once a refuge but now a drowned, mysterious relic.

Hope takes the shape of the exploding yellow head on the far left. Visions of colourful delights flow out of his head, candies and flowers support a childhood source of comfort in the shape of a teddy bear. But there is a sinister side to hope, perhaps when hope becomes delusional. The teddy bear is actually coming apart and his insides (his essence) is being devoured by two other figures.

Despair is the eggman on the far right. Lost in his anguish, his head leaks the essence that once held him together, his hope of evolving from egg state to bird is no more. The green figure above him echoes his emotional state and dark clouds brew in the background with foreboding menace.

The spaceman is the explorer, surveying the mayhem, like an agent of psychoanalysis assessing the situation, from the safety of his self-contained suit.

Frank Zappa once said, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture”. I feel the same way about writing about art. Art is its own language with only awkward translations available. I can repeat the notions that crossed my mind when creating the painting, but most of that would be irrelevant. I could deconstruct the process employed while producing the piece but that would only be an abstraction of a bunch of arbitrary steps. I could agonize over all the decisions that went into the painting but that would be like describing all the bolts that go into the making of an automobile. The composition tends towards a harmonious sense of balance — a measuring out of points of interest, detail and colour but it reveals nothing significant.

Essence of Hope and Despair

Painting in Art Comp 2023 competition

A painting by pop surrealist Stephen Gibb

Artist: Stephen Gibb, oil on wood panel, 36″ x 24″, 2021

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2023

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2023 paintings

Index of paintings by Stephen Gibb

2023 paintings

What is painting and why do I paint

To understand the object as a symbol the viewer must disengage from the object and penetrate beyond its visual representation to extract its significance from the volumes of connotation held within. To say a picture is worth a thousand words is to impose a limitation on its potential.

What my paintings offer is a chance for the viewer to construct their own narrative based on the connotations and associations they may derive from the imagery, regardless of my motivations for painting it.

Understand, there are no dugs involved and no psychedelic experimentation. Along with my natural neurological makeup, I have conditioned my mind to think in a way that allows bizarre connections and associations to combine with seemingly disparate objects — all coming together with meaning and signification.

Stephen Gibb lives and works in southern Ontario, Canada. He earned a B.F.A. in visual arts from the University of Windsor and is currently represented by the St. Germain gallery in Toronto. Among the cities he has exhibited in are San Diego, Sacramento, and Hollywood— the hotbed of California’s Lowbrow and Pop Surrealism community. His work is collected around the globe and has gained widening interest since working on the album art for hip hop artist Trippie Redd.

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Psychopathology of Wants and Needs – Pop surrealism painting by Canadian Artist Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel, 2022

This painting started off a few light years away from where it ended up. The original concept was to do something around the theme of “bliss”, examining the things that bring us to this occasionally visited state of mind.

I envisioned a head absorbing the things around it, which would have been things that evoke the state of bliss in people. The head became a skull, full of holes because it just seemed like a cool idea. I think sometimes the things that people seek to attain their blissful state can also be deadly and I liked the “ultimate conclusion” commentary by including the skull, acknowledging it as the final destination of bliss and of life.

Everything I came up with just seemed lame after that. So, I thought I’d explore the foundations of why we seek bliss. It occurred to me that maybe there was something in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that could give some insight into the concept.

This is where I abandoned the whole bliss theme.

Instead, I focused on representations of “needs” in my typical left-field approach, bubblegum surrealism style. A trivialized representation of food (sustenance) became a pie, which I doubled back on, posing the pie in the act of replicating himself…rolling out some dough for a crust. Reproduction is on the lower level on Maslow’s hierarchy and is represented by the pie and the gooey union of the two lolly pops, who produce offspring at the point of their sticky embrace. The progeny then takes an ironic bite out of the parent in an act of defiance and rebellion — the normal function of a teenager (LOL). At the far right a figure looks at his fingers as they produce offspring, which appear to just be fodder for the crow standing nearby (the circle of life).

The figure on the far right also represents clothing, shelter, property, security, which are lower, basic requirements according to Maslow.

The sleeping potato symbolizes, sleep, air and water — also basic needs, in spite of the absurdity of the situation.

As we move upward the needs become more abstract and less material. The two lollies could represent love, intimacy, family and connection, whereas the green lolly’s floating-away crown touches on the area Maslow characterized as “esteem”, the realm of status, recognition and self-esteem, things I think our society puts too much stock in. As well we put absurd value on wants versus needs and a title was suggested to me — The Psychopathology of Need and Wants.

At the right side of the mountain is Sisyphus as an ape, pushing a large brain up the incline, symbolizing evolution, strength and the struggle to raise the “required needs” to the pinnacle of the hierarchy, which is represented by the pyramid man at the top, radiating out to embrace everything in his “blissful” state of self-actualization. - Artist Stephen Gibb, Nov., 2022

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The Aimless Meander: The creative process involved in composing Dr. Daydream Prescribes Aggressive Psychotherapy

Meditating on the concept of daydreaming conjures all kinds of stereotypes, mostly those perpetuated by pop culture and the associated canon of symbols established by TV, music, movies, and comics. A reclined child staring into the clouds and seeing shapes appear is the standard cliche, which I wanted to avoid.

Dr. Daydream Prescribes Aggressive Psychotherapy — Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel, 2022

When I decided to explore the concept of daydreams for a painting I began with the idea of a figure in a daydream state, emersed physically, into the stuff that daydreams are made of.
My initial figure took shape as an old man, eyes closed, lost in his imagination, represented by an eyeball floating in liquid, where his brain should have been.

Line work for the painting “Dr. Daydream Prescribes Aggressive Psychotherapy” by Stephen Gibb, 2002

Dr. Daydream

I christened him Dr. Daydream and I set about imagining his world. I envisioned a guide leading Dr. Daydream through his dream, which could be none other than his own brain. Astride his brain a jovial Humpty Dumpty takes his hand to help him navigate the bizarre landscape. Humpty steers the brain but is oblivious of his duty since he looks backwards instead of at the road ahead. This represents the meandering uncertainty of where a daydream will lead us. The journey is an adventure without destination.

From Dark to Light

I wanted Dr. Daydream moving away from the darkness and into the bright future ahead. This is kind of illustrating an escapist view of daydreaming. Rather than dealing with the foreboding darkness, his attention is directed away at the bright colours and the large happy face that dominates the right side above him. Mr. Moonlight looks down with sorrowful eyes as the Doctor moves away from the darkness of the woods and wilderness behind him.

Time Doesn’t Fly, it Floats Away

Dr. Daydream was wearing a wristwatch, but it has detached and is floating away. In a dream state, time has no domain over the dreamer…

Title Just Isn’t Cutting it

Things from here out started to get more and more associative and detached from the pure notion of daydreaming. I decided to expand the title to encompass the broadening scope of the content. Dr. Daydream Prescribes Aggressive Psychotherapy works better, and now adds more width for tangential exploration. The vast realm of psychology can now be conjured, and my diversions of whimsy can be excused away.

Walking is A Time-Space Activity

Dr. Daydream steps forward and his most recent footstep is ghosted by a bare foot stepping in sticky goo. My thought here was to represent a movement through time and the bare, primitive foot being a step back in evolution, contrasted with the present-time foot.

Protective Headgear Recommended for All

I like to insert interlocutors into the foreground of my paintings—seemingly detached observers helping the viewer link with the overwhelming weirdness going on behind. Enter Helmet Head.
Helmet Head is more concerned with the wondrous object in his grasp but helps add to the general mystery of the overall image.

Idea Thief

OK, sometimes I rehash an idea that I’ve used before and by that action, I become my own idea thief. Helmet Head has a socket in his dome, from which a slimy creep removes a lightbulb. Symbolism borrowed from cartoons and comics, probably dating back to Edison. I said I wanted to avoid symbolic cliches, but here is an exception.

A Phallic Rocket Becomes a Knife

In rough sketches I positioned a rocket in the sky above the good Doctor’s head, leaving a trail that swirled around his head, between his legs and to its beginnings, somewhere over and beyond the trees. As things progressed in the sketch, I decided to turn the rocket into a knife, a more aggressive phallus, and have it sail between his legs in a psychosexual trajectory but embed it into his brain. I’ll let you do your own psychoanalysis of this. A certain F word may help.

The Red Balloon

Another symbol of floating along…the balloon is a reference to the aimless meander of daydreaming. In this case the balloon drifts through the air and makes it impossible for a caretaker to keep Dr. Daydream’s head corked. His essence is released in a psychedelic burst of colour…setting the stage for the multicoloured right-hand side of the painting.

Building Out the Composition with Unencumbered Impulses

The basic image was composed pretty much as it was chronologically described above. At this point there was some need for smaller details and compositional elements to be added for balance and interest. The Brain crawls along the ground but is distracted by a skull with the cap removed and examines the contents as he pours it out. This could easily represent psychotherapy. The symbol for the Greek letter Psi is added to the knife, which is also widely understood as a symbol for psychology. Clouds form from stars and hearts in a cheesy reference to seeing shapes (Pareidolia) where they don’t really exist. A spaceship bears witness to the events below, representing a naïve or innocent bystander. Dr. Daydream’s left hand is grounded by a tap root, symbolizing the roots of everything with nature. He also wears an interesting signet ring of no real importance but will keep viewers challenging themselves to formulate a meaning. Human nature demands meaning from the things in its environment, however, there is no direct line to interpreting the painting “correctly”. Some symbolism may come easily to the viewer and the meaning may be more commonly held than others. The true joy is identifying things through your own idiosyncratic filters and biases and deriving your own meaning. My paintings give you permission to explore yourself by mulling over the images.

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Nighttime Quells the Frisson of Breathing Sunlight — Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel, 2020

Canadian artist Stephen Gibb

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Hopefully you can find what you are looking for in the above links or by a simple Google search. If you have any questions or want to reach out to me personally you can always send an email at: info@stephengibb.com

Vax —Canadian artist Stephen Gibb, 36′ x 24″, oil on panel, 2021

More from Canadian artist Stephen Gibb: On the surface it would be easy to categorize my “style” as a blend of Surrealistic fluidity, Northern Renaissance narratives with Cartoon/Comic Book characters in a Nursery Rhyme tale of morality. I guess if it were to fit a trend it would be a remnant of the Hot Rod and Psychedelic art of the 60s, which today is recognized as Pop Surrealism.

I am fascinated by neuroscience and psychology, which probably flavours everything I do. When composing a painting I will ask myself or have specific ideas about what the characters are thinking and experiencing. I think it’s my way of opening a dialogue with the viewer, hoping that they ask the same questions.

I have always been interested in the human condition and the complexity of human nature. I tend to think in “universal” themes, which may be skewed by my own biases and perspective, but they often serve as my point of inspiration. What could be characterized as existential themes, ones that cross cut the inner workings and emotions of being human—being alone, being faced with trying to make sense of existence—arise all the time in my work.

Most often the external influences on my art are just reactions to what I perceive about the situations around me. I do draw a lot of inspiration from concepts like consumerism and capitalism—our nature to indulge in excess and exploit the planet for personal gain. By extension that exploitation of the planet trickles through in environmental messages occasionally. This year I also responded to the pandemic with a plague-themed painting. In it I used some of my standard themes of decay, threat , anxiety and self-preservation.I think my introverted nature has directed most of my life experience and forced me to internalize things in order to evaluate and search for meaning. I try hard to understand things and have come to respect the inevitable confusion. Confusion is just one of the ingredients that shape meaning.

I come from a comfortable middle-class background that nurtured a thirst for experience, exploration, curiosity and inspiration. When someone turns a concept I’ve held on its head I am always shook and love that mind-blowing feeling of new discovery. I have a university education and a BFA in visual arts, so I had the good fortune of that experience as a foundation. Western pop culture has definitely played more of a role in contributing to my art than religion, gender or ethnicity.

I’ve never had to sustain myself by selling art, so I never fell into the trap of producing commoditised or commodified artwork—just simply painted to sell. My main income was elsewhere and that gave me a deep respect for the time and effort I wanted to put into my painting. I painted what I wanted without a market in mind and it slowly developed over the years to what it is today. I don’t think it could have worked any other way.

Canadian artist Stephen Gibb

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Girl Eats Sun: Background story to the artwork for Hope Tala

I was contacted in the summer of 2020 to work with Hope Tala on creating some album art for her EP Girl Eats Sun.

When I asked if she was the “girl” in the title, she confirmed my suspicion and I knew I had to incorporate a portrait of her into the artwork.

She gave me a list of song titles — Girl Eats Sun, All My Girls Like To Fight, Crazy, Drugstore, Easy To Love Me, Mulholland and Cherries. I though, why not use these titles as the source for the imagery on the cover as well. So each song title became symbolically represented and combined with the image of Hope herself. Each title conjured a rich image in my mind that fit perfectly with my quirky way of painting in my pop surrealism style. I worked up a rough sketch that blended all the seperate images into one big scene of craziness.

I got Hope’s blessings on my sketch and I jumped into the painting with both feet. Everything came together into one big, bright unified image—reminiscent of psychedelic art from the 1960s. The exaggerated colour and playful characters help give the painting an undeniable sense of crazy fun.

I’ll let you figure out the rest for yourself.

Interview in Euphoria

Interview in House of Solo

Hope Tala on Twitter

Hope Tala on Instagram

Stephen Gibb on Instagram

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Dropping off paintings at St. Germain Gallery in Toronto.

Anyone in the GTA looking for my art may be pleased to know that it may be closer than you think.

I have been working with the St. Germain Gallery at 3358 Yonge St. in Toronto since May 2018 and they have a number of my paintings available for view and sale in their gallery.

I would encourage you to visit Young Kim and Chad Fobert at the gallery or take some time to browse their Online site at www.stgermaingallery.com

Paintings available include:

SOLD — Don’t Poop On My Party!—Stephen Gibb, 324″ x 24″, oil on panel, 2020

Don’t Poop On My Party! — 24” x 21.5”, oil on panel, 2020

The Panpsychic Candy Apple, Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel, 2020

The Panpsychic Candy Apple — 36” x 24”, oil on panel, 2020

SOLD — Death of Contemplation, Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel, 2019

Death of Contemplation — 36” x 24”, oil on panel, 2019

Spooky Action at Close Proximity — Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel, 2019

Spooky Action At Close Proximity — 36” x 24”, oil on panel, 2019

Red Dot Magnified 20,000% — 43” circle, oil on panel, 2018

Bread #9 — 12″ x 12″, oil on panel, 2018

Bread #16 — 12″ x 12″, oil on panel, 2018

Bread #17 — 12″ x 12″, oil on panel, 2018

Frog Prince at the Gates of Decay, painting by Canadian surrealist Stephen Gibb, 48″ x 36″, oil on panel, 2017

Frog prince at the gates of decay — 48″ x 36″, oil on panel, 2017

Happy Moon Face – Stephen Gibb, oil on panel, 2017

Moon Face — 43” circle, oil on panel, 2017

Persistence of decay

Persistence of Decay — 24” x 24”, oil on panel, 2015

The lovelorn and the cycle of lies

The Lovelorn and the Cycle of Lies — 24” x 24”, oil on panel, 2015

The Icarus Clock — 24” x24”, oil on panel, 2014

The Sourdough Dolly and Her Salivating Solid-door Ally Choose Either Salad or Surreal Cereal as Sir Eel and Salvador Dali Look on — 24” x 24”, oil on panel, 2014

Stressed for Time — 24” x 24”, oil on panel, 2014

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21st Century Surrealism

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Lava Quest—Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel, 2020

Maybe it’s not even fair to call what I do Contemporary Surrealism or even Surreal Art. The presentation may make the viewer recall surrealism from their scant art history lessons in high school but the surreal art of scholarly examination relates to something from long ago and far away—produced under an entirely different mind set and time period. What I do with my fractured logic and characters of a fantastic nature are narrative tools and devices, akin to the characters and stories in a Grimm’s fairy tale. On the surface is a personified eruption of molten lava, but what is present in connotations and associations below the surface is the real message, awaiting extraction.

The Lava Quest

Being in a state of engineered subjugation leaves an individual always longing and aspiring to elevate their standing, improve their quality of life and notch their status up the prestige ladder. It’s the nature of consumerist and capitalist society—what fuels the churn of the “daily grind” and the unfulfilling drudgery of the workweek. What is often at work is a psychological sense of inadequacy, a nagging impulse to keep up with the Jonses and relentless social climbing.

Humpty has a broken cup. He sees the object of his desire—the “holy grail” cup across the molten abyss and his quest becomes clear. Through much sacrifice he takes up the challenge, burning others on his way, using them to keep his balance. At one end of the rope he struggles in a psychological representation on himself, literally losing his mind and destroying his physical self in the process. He faces death across the abyss, which is holding the other end of the rope mockingly in his grinning teeth.

The land he leaves behind is essentially a prison, mindless and without hope. The land he crosses over to is where the mind resides, swimming in a vat of Kool-Aid and disguised with a smiling façade. A turnip tries desperately to carve a crown out of his own flesh but in doing so illustrates the absurdity of the entire image.

Innocent witnesses are found in the pear man and the goldfish, taking in the scene with surprise and trepidation. The fishhook forms a “question mark”, emphasising the wonder and confusion of the activity. The only character being true to his nature is the lava, blissfully erupting without concern to those around him.

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21st Century Surrealism

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