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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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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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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