Category Archives: Pop Surrealism Lowbrow

Pop Surrealism Lowbrow

Something About the King of Trash — Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel, 2021

I started out with the King of Trash in the middle, I just like the idea and the contrast of a garbage receptacle having a gold crown. Then I had the wooden head on one side and the more realistic head on the other, symbolizing what is artificial and real in life. By extension, the artificial is next to a a fake clown archway leading to a circus or carnival, far in the distance. That is an artificial experience, something put together for profit and entertainment and full of illusion. The green jelly head is the perfect audience, wide-eyed, hypnotized, suckered in by the marketing and hype of the artificial world. The apple pierced by an arrow is a publicity stunt like William Tell, an empty act of showmanship and skill. The floating hat portrays highbrow society…distancing itself from the “common” wood head and the worm is the king of lowbrow society, wriggling in the dirt and heading for the sewer. The discarded tickets are the hollow remnants of the experience, meaningless litter without context.
The hands reaching for the skull could be interpreted many ways. My thought was, the human hand coming from the sewer can only see a golden ball and greedily reaches for riches…not knowing it is reaching for death. The root arm which is an extension of nature reaches for the skull, either willingly grasping for death or protectively keeping it from the human. It could be a symbol of fate, greed, vice and the die with the distressed face is a symbol of chance, positioned between fate and luck (the clover) but since it’s not a 4-leaf clover the luck is diminished. The fly steals a sugar cube or a sweet idea from the king and is a symbol of someone profiting or exploiting someone’s thoughts. the jester egg attempts to swat it away. A bag of trash oozes goo out onto the “real” head and the whole unnatural, pop surrealism lowbrow scene is witnessed by “nature” the tree.

Happy Landscape, Stephen Gibb, 24″ x 18″, oil on panel, 2021

Freak Out in a Man-in-the-Moonage Daydream, Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 36″, oil on panel, 2020

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