Contemporary artist takes a look at loss

By Stephen Gibb | Published: 05/03/2019

Contemporary artist is lost in the wilderness…

Pictorial Puzzles for a Post-human Paleontologist, Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel, 2018

Contemporary artist Stephen Gibb has offered a mysterious painting for an uncertain future society. Entitled “Pictorial Puzzles for a Post-human Palaeontologist“ the painter playfully acknowledges that there is “a man behind the curtain” and that the viewer isn’t about to fall down the rabbit hole, but is well on their way to the bottom.

Framed around idioms of loss it is easy to lose your mind or your marbles trying to unravel the mystery. Don’t lose your cool or your head since most things can get lost in translation. Simply submit to the swirling flow of logic and when you feel like you are losing your footing or your direction steer clear of the lost souls and head back for solid ground. No one loses face for trying.

In his continuing series of hyper-coloured, mind-blowing adventures in pop surrealism, pop art and improbable contemporary art, Gibb has established a brand of imagery that pulls you in many directions. Juggling a chainsaw of pop culture, a bowling ball of absurdity and a feather of neuroscience he delivers a head-spinning smorgasbord of social commentary and sly humour on a platter, with an assortment of psychedelic desserts.

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Canadian surrealist painter looks at the mind

By Stephen Gibb | Published: 21/11/2018

Canadian surrealist painter Stephen Gibb takes a mind-bending look at contemporary art,
pop culture and social commentary with his painting You Are Out Of Your Mind!

mind-bending Canadian surrealist painter

You Are Out Of Your Mind! Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel, 2018

Playing with “mind” idioms is one way to blow your mind.
Another is to examine the world through your mind’s eye.
If you could read my mind you could clearly see that my mind is in the gutter.
And amidst all this madness and lunacy is the real mind trap.
So take a load off your mind and get past the notion that this painting is a sick idea.
Remember that your mind is a blank slate, a blank canvas on which you create yourself,
once you’ve unlocked your mind from your rigid mind set and escape your demons…
at least until you forget what you are doing, since you have a mind like a sieve.

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Canadian painter, caught thinking

By Stephen Gibb | Published: 15/10/2018

Canadian painter Stephen Gibb, at first glance, constructs multi-character, fanciful images of chaos and anxiety with seemingly no harmonic or thematic continuity. But what appears to be random figures and agents orchestrated in an epic composition, is actually a carefully calculated and deliberate construction.

When the images are broken down into their language-based roots, something striking happens. The literal meaning jumps out with as much vitality as the striking colours, and the relationship between the image and the concept often carries through with steadfast continuity like in the painting Caught.

Painting by Canadian Painter Stephen Gibb - Caught

Caught, by Stephen Gibb, oil on panel, 36″ x 24″, 2018

While riffing on the theme “caught” and exploiting language and idioms of speech that utilize the word, such as “caught red-handed” Gibb has thematically tied together what otherwise would be construed as disparate, unrelated images. As one decodes the painting with this virtual key, idioms like “caught with your hand in the cookie jar” or “caught between the devil and deep blue sea” help to unify the subjects portrayed in the painting. The associations are sometimes very tenuous, forcing the viewer to contemplate the painting with more intensity. This demand on the viewer is what Gibb is hoping for—a concentrated effort, a slowed, deep thinking to resonate in parallel with the effort that went into making the painting.

“If the viewer can take themselves out of themselves, then I have done my job” says the Canadian painter. “I want people to slow down and immerse themselves in the painting—this isn’t some decorative punch line that you get at a glance. This is more like a short story, that demands you challenge yourself a bit and extract something for yourself.”

The implicit contract between the artist and the viewer has been strained by aloof art-for-art’s-sake posturing and ignored so often we sometimes forget that the artist is aware that someone is going to confront it and mine it for meaning. With Gibb’s more ambitious paintings, there is a treasure waiting to unearth.

See more about Canadian artist Stephen Gibb

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Life’s a Trip

By Stephen Gibb | Published: 10/08/2018

Cover art for Trippie Redd’s Life’s A Trip album, August, 2018.

Life’s A Trip

The initial design, grew and blossomed from this point of beginning (below)…eventually leading to the final artwork above.

Stephen Gibb’s initial design artwork for “LIFE’S A TRIP”

Combining symbolic characters in a colourful explosion of activity Stephen Gibb followed Trippie’s suggestions of making the cover something
so visually dynamic that the viewer didn’t know where to look next. The artwork harkens back to the golden days of album rock and the
psychedelic designs of the late 60s and early 70s with an updated sense of pure fun.

More on Stephen Gibb – Facebook – Instagram
More on Trippie
Stephen Gibb credit – Allmusic.com

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To the Moon, and Back…

By Stephen Gibb | Published: 08/06/2018

Moon Faces

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

Canadian artist Stephen Gibb is a self-confessed inspiration addict and has, by necessity, found it all around him. He gets his fix from the books he has read, the products he is consumed by daily and the chance encounters he experiences at every corner.

Take the iconic moon face—the anthropomorphized version of that familiar circular object in the night sky. Whether it’s portrayed as an observer from above, blithely engaging in a detached gaze or an active participant, reacting in emotional display as if it actually cares what is happening down below—the omnipresent moon acts as a witness, an agent of oversight, the audience.

The moon face is an extension of nursery-rhyme imagery, in which objects are often portrayed with cartoon-like expressions for a more benign, humourous effect and occasionally with more human-like features, resulting in a more disturbing, unsettling face.

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

It’s this unsettling boundary that Gibb is interested in—the point where cute meets with creepy and the observer vacillates between the two diametrics in a speed-of-mind frenzy. What are the characteristics that tip the scales in one direction or the other?

“This is my frontier, my untamed wilderness”, says Gibb, as if to distance himself and inoculate his art from the endless sea of nature paintings produced by other Canadian artists. “My interpretation of nature always has a human component, I’m trying to see inside and express it in a way that urges some kind of response.”

As simple as his moon face paintings appear, when physically encountered they assume an unexpected presence. Created as circular cut outs they become more like objects than just self-absorbed artworks contained in an “I-AM-ART” frame.

Green Cheese Moon Face – Stephen Gibb, oil on panel, 2017

Embrace your inner circle

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Canadian Artist Stephen Gibb – Laughing out loud

By Stephen Gibb | Published: 07/12/2017

Laughing all the way to the grave

Laughing in the Face of Death – Stephen Gibb, oil on panel, 2017

Laughing In The Face Of Death
The motivation behind this painting began with an observation. I was surprised at an art opening how dismissive the crowd was to the art on the surrounding walls, and how the party activity in the room was the real reason for the gathering. It irks me to think that all the thought and effort an artist puts into their work is so easily ignored and marginalized. Observe any exhibit and notice how quickly visitors will pass a painting, merely glancing sideways or feigning interest with the most cursory, peripheral review of the work. Of course not everything is going to be of interest to every one but…

Can’t be ignored
The idea struck me that maybe it was possible to paint something that can’t be ignored—something so bold, goofy, jarring, in-your-face that it demanded at least a 5 second pause before the viewer returned their gaze to their phone. That’s where the idea for the big, Laughing Man came from and why he dominates the painting. It’s like a goofy carnival head made of paper mâché that both playfully demands our attention and repulsively makes us squirm in its presence. It’s the draw to the scene, the magnet that pulls us into the setting and invites us to surrender to the narrative, both objectively and subjectively. My hope is that the viewer gets lost unravelling their thoughts in response to the guidance offered by the images. The Laughing Man at first glance seems benign and happy, but in the context of the painting there is a darker behaviour at play. One begins to see the mockery and ridicule in his face…

Sympathy for the Death Head
Death has traditionally been portrayed as the spectre of doom, something to be feared and avoided, not mocked or belittled. In this reversal of characterization, he becomes almost an object of sympathy, his rectus grin replaced by a “taken aback” expression, which seems all the more fitting. I love toying with these kinds of ambiguity, forcing the viewer to take sides as an active participant. The only hints I hand out are crumbs that lead the viewer in their own direction of exploration and comprehension.

On the Shoulders of Giants
The Shoulder Devil is often a symbol of the troubled conscience, the darker foil that in some yin yang balance counters that of the Shoulder Angel. As presented here, the Shoulder Angel should be the Laughing Man and since we have established that “he’s no angel”, then perhaps the devil is “no devil”. His expression echoes the disconcerted face of Death and the disarmed Shoulder Devil seems to be rendered impotent with his diminished scale overwhelmed by the presence of the Laughing Man.

What’s your Poison?
Death’s head again gets echoed in the poison’s skull and crossed bones symbol. The pernicious liquid dissipates in a threatening vapour, consistent with the theme of death on the left side of the painting. The Kool-Aid coloured liquid establishes a dichotomy of repulsion and attraction, drawing the viewer to its visual appeal and repelling them with its warning label.

Day of Reckoning
Like the Judgement card in the tarot deck, the graveyard is often the setting for the events of the Day of Reckoning, where the dead are held accountable for their earthly actions. The grave markers bear witness to the impending doom of the final days playing out on the left side of the painting with everything tilting toward one giant opened grave that Death merges with at the bottom corner.

Lunacy of the Cosmos
The cosmic forces at play in the upper portion of the painting represent the natural cataclysm looming over us each day. The Moon strains to spew out a giant fireball that nonchalantly plunges toward earth. Even if the Laughing Man has distracted Death, the indiscriminate forces of nature will finish his job for him.

Nail on the Head, Life in the Balance
I often use Humpty Dumpty in a way that makes him a placeholder for humanity. He is fragile and susceptible to the elements and situations that he finds himself in. He is the existential king of nursery rhymes and his daring and courage are reflected in the simplest of actions since his frail shell could fracture from the slightest bump. He ironically flails a hammer, but he hits the nail on the head—the head of Death. Like the last nail in the coffin, the final blow, he boldly attempts to finish off death.
His hideous grin repeats that of the Laughing Man and the cannibalistic fried egg in his left hand makes him less than a sympathetic character as well.

The Game of Life
On the far right is a pantomime of life, players rolling the dice and chance dictating the outcome. There is the power/class struggle, the leader being self absorbed in his own good fortune, oblivious to the ones left behind and the downtrodden lashing out in frustration. Sensory input is also left to chance as the game leads inevitably towards Death and the opened grave on the far left.

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•••
Stephen Gibb and Canadian Art
As a Canadian artist, I feel like I must do my best to reach a Canadian audience. I hope this series of analytical explanations of my paintings helps broaden the awareness of my art in Canada and eventually beyond.

Posted in Canadian art, Canadian Artist, Canadian Surrealism, Humpty Dumpty, Pop Surrealism Lowbrow, Stephen Gibb, Surrealism | Tagged canadian artist, canadian surrealism, humpty dumpty, laughing in the face of death, pop surrealism, stephen gibb | Comments closed

Anatomy of The Frog Prince At The Gates Of Decay

By Stephen Gibb | Published: 23/11/2017

Frog Prince At The Gates Of Decay

Frog Prince Anatomy: Analytical dissection of The Frog Prince At The Gates Of Decay

To understand the motivation and source of my Frog Prince painting’s inspiration it’s probably best to break it apart and examine the bits close-up.

The Frog Prince or the Prince Frog
The central figure is the frog prince, which was chosen because of my interest in the ambiguity of characters. Is he a prince or is he a frog? Is he a prince who has been turned into a frog or is he a frog who may get turned into a prince. He occupies both states in my mind, like Schrodinger’s cat, both dead and alive, a symbol of potential. As well, the frog has many symbolic meanings to various cultures, including good luck and fertility.

Crowning Glory
Adorned by a multi-faced crown, his status signifier is ambiguous with its conflicting expressions ranging from angry to neutral to happy. Again, the uncertainty, the beguiling nature of emotions or states in flux appeals to me deeply and should register in the viewer’s mind as a point of contemplation. Crowns have always symbolised a certain status/prestige kind of theme to me, which is easily lumped into the whole ego/esteem domain and a fun territory to explore. Above the crown hovers the spectre of death, clearly glancing to the left hand side of the painting for reasons that will soon be made apparent.

Splitting Up the Estate
If the painting is bisected down the middle it gets thematically divided, with despair and decay on the left and prosperity and abundance on the right. Though this may be a trite dichotomy, I feel like the use of new symbols and standard conventions opens up a fresh way of looking at things.

Time in Chains
The tall figure on the left is the spectre of time as a grandfather clock, trudging under the weight of his chains like Marley’s ghost—anchored to the sins of his past. This is a little play on the word zeitgeist (time ghost/spirit) but also establishes the themes of despair (his ghostly obligation, condemned to carry his burden) and decay (the by-product of passing time) also shows in his forlorn expression as he watches his hand (hands of time) disintegrate.

I have No Mouth and I Must BBQ
On the far left is a dinosaur engaged in the futile task of grilling a steak he cannot eat, since he has no mouth and his entire head is an eyeball. His eye is clearly bigger than his stomach, which means he wants more than he can actually have. Prehistoric creatures fall into the theme of despair and decay without even trying. They are extinct, long-gone figments of the past, which again tie into the theme of time.

Venus of Willendorf: The Barren Fertility Goddess
The Venus of Willendorf (c. 25,000 BC) is speculatively attributed to be a fertility goddess, an object that through sympathetic magic would bestow to those associated with it, abundance and fertility. It is however made of stone, and to western culture, stone is more synonymous with death than fecundity. Nestled to the Venus’s stone breast is the skull of an infant, sardonically positioned to suckle in an absurd pantomime

Crappy Birthday
At the bottom left is a decomposing birthday cake, frosting putrefying and candles that typically denote the years and the passing of time, askew and blinding the cake’s agonized face.

Perverse Playthings
At the bottom left is also a pull-toy in the form of a housefly. Contrasting the cute and cuddly with the vile and repulsive, flies stand for decay in a way that makes them uniquely qualified as experts. Their maggot offspring thrive on decay and as adults they frequent spots of disgust to lay their eggs and socialize. I like the humour of the toy/food relationship too. The toy is arguable the frog’s and also a housefly would typically be a food for the frog.

Spare Me Some Cutter?
The old, emaciated man reaches inside the frog’s mouth for a morsel or is the frog biting his arm? An act of desperation seems more likely, given the meagre meal the old man would offer. The lengths someone will go for survival including eminent peril, makes the act more heroic than pitiful.

Melting Moon/Crumbling Column
C’mon, I don’t have to spell it out for you…do I?

Magic Money Carpet Ride in the Land of Milk and Honey
One of the only characters inhabiting the painting that seems to be enjoying himself is the milk glass. Even though he is carelessly spilling himself for the shear fun of the flight he is exemplary of wanton waste, conspicuous display and the thrill-seeking nature of wealth. His honey sidekick seems to be just along for the ride but his stoic demeanour is part of his blasé personae—everything is too boring—been there, done that.

The All-Consuming Octopus
This creature devours the landscape, just as we carelessly plunder ours for resources at risk of depletion. When there is plenty to be had we seldom consider a time when there would be otherwise. In his tentacles are spoons (silver?) one of which is using its own spoon to sample the meal. In some way this is a comment on subservience, each subsequent link gets a smaller portion.

Mr. Money bags
Clearly filled to near bursting, Mr. Money Bags is not content with his station, turning out his pockets in horror that there isn’t more. Greed becomes a poisonous motivation for many who are in financially secure situations. The need for more begets the need for more…

Pot O’ Gold
Yes that’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow on the right. If the arc of the rainbow is followed to the left hand side of the painting it leads to a bucket of slop.

Hello Dolly
The frog neglectfully ignores the doll draped over its arm. The doll appears to be “dead”, with cartoon Xs for eyes and comports a limp posture. A doll is a surrogate for the real thing and thankfully the frog is only lord over a pretend baby, since his attention is obviously directed to his more self-interested distractions.

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Originally posted at:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/stephen-gibb/work-in-progressthe-frog-prince/1382002881883751/

Bubblegum Surrealism: Stephen Gibb – Artist Statement concerning pop surrealism in Canada as a contemporary Canadian artist. Canadian art is a fractured story of borrowing and appropriation from all cultures. Canadian Surrealism is the category what I most often associate my art with.

Posted in Canadian art, Canadian Artist, Canadian Surrealism, Pop Art, Pop Surrealism Lowbrow, Stephen Gibb, surreal, Surrealism | Tagged bubblegum surrealism, canadian artist, canadian surrealism, Frog Prince, land of milk and honey, money bags | Comments closed

Canadian cuisine

By Stephen Gibb | Published: 26/06/2017

Canadian cuisine: Canada 150

Canadian cuisine: What is truly Canadian?
These are not easily answered questions, since so much of what Canada boasts as cultural signifiers have been adopted from it’s big sibling, the USA. The close proximity of the US and the cultural dominance of American culture in western society have often eclipsed the accomplishments and advances made here in Canada.

One thing I wanted to do in honour (notice this the Canadian spelling of honor) of our 150th birthday is paint tributes to Canadian foods—items often associated as being invented here and commonplace enough to establish a certain national identity with these items.

Maple Syrup

Maple Syrup
Discovered by our indigenous peoples, this sweet, sticky syrup is most often associated as a topping for pancakes and waffles and is essentially a concentrated form of maple tree sap. Since Canada’s national symbol and emblem on our flag is a maple leaf, it only made sense to choose this countrywide favourite.

Butter Tart

Butter tart
As Wikipedia proclaims “A butter tart is a type of small pastry tart highly regarded in Canadian cuisine and considered one of Canada’s quintessential desserts.”
(source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butter_tart ). Something every Canadian grandmother should know how to make and a staple at any festive holiday.

Poutine

Poutine
Originating somewhere in Quebec, the idea of combining French fries, cheese curds and hot gravy turned out to be a winning recipe. Now found throughout Canada and spilling into the US, poutine has become synonymous with Canadian cuisine.

Nanaimo Bar

Nanaimo bar
Named after the city of Nanaimo, British Columbia on Vancouver Island, this sweet, no-bake dessert consists of a crumb-based bottom layer, a butter cream icing middle and topped by melted chocolate.

Canadian Bacon (back bacon) and Peameal bacon
Everyone always sites this as a Canadian cuisine item but I thought it was just too gross to paint.

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Canadian Art

By Stephen Gibb | Published: 15/02/2017

Canadian art has an identity crisis

Here we go round the prickly apple at 5 o’clock in the morning – Stephen Gibb, oil on panel, 2017

Canadian art is more than the Group of Seven. It is more than our glorious indigenous art. It is more than the stereotypical landscape and wildlife painting that dominates reproductions on calendars and postcards and garner top rankings on Google searches.

The Canadian art identity is subtle. To an Asian it would likely be identified as “western” and to a European it would likely be construed as American. It would probably take a fellow Canadian to extract the Canadianness from artwork that doesn’t rely on typical geographical cues (wildlife, wilderness) and symbols (hockey, poutine etc.).

There is a state of mind represented that could loosely be identified as “not American”. It is a perspective of detachment and distance that allows Canadian art to pry up the corners of North American culture to expose the hidden elements that jiggle in the shadows of the periphery. Outside the glow of the spotlight, in the American blind spots, lurks the forgotten, the disenfranchised, the marginalized; the alienated…that when brought into sharp focus tells another story altogether – a Canadian story.

This is the playground in which many Canadian artists build their sandcastles. The underbelly of Pop culture super-saturation, the dark corners out of the line of fire of the relentless mass-marketing assault.

It just happens that my surreal sandbox is full of childhood remnants and symbols drenched in literal word and image play.

The painting above is entitled “Here we go round the prickly apple at 5 o’clock in the morning”, a skewed reference to T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men which some of the imagery also alludes to. Whereas Eliot’s allusions were more relevant to post World War I, my reading of it is more post Cold War and contemporary.

My central figure, the hollow monstrosity, blindly lurching across the landscape, is a figure of despair with his beard of honey and skullcap shredded from his “mind-blowing experience”. The honey has run past the mouth and now drips away, like the passing of time, no longer a sweet sensation but a receding memory.

Guided by the whispers of the serpent coiled on his arm, the tongue-in-cheek biblical symbolism is continued with the apple, rendered inedible by the spines it is covered with, yet the double-ended serpent is poised to bite regardless of the pain. Out of the serpent’s mouth flows the river of life in which swims a progression of evolving creatures from amoeba, to tadpole, fish to humanoid. This relates to the story of the Garden of Eden, original sin and the flow of life from that mythic origin. An eaten apple (the sin already committed) seems to want revenge on the prickly apple, perhaps in some cannibalistic tit-for-tat in order to vindicate his symbolic death.

Below the apples is a large lab rat, lured by unusual bait. The eyeball hovering over the trap is a point of perspective, which we all know can be a trap in itself. Lab animals are often used metaphorically to mock human’s primitive, behavioural nature.

To the hollow man’s left elbow is a toppling totem of emotions. At the bottom is anger or rage, then sadness, happiness, a sort of hybrid of disgust and contempt and lastly fear, which is in imminent peril of falling. Read into this the chaotic spectrum of emotions that we are dealt in life and the tenuous balance that must be kept for self-preservation.

At the far left two canisters of goo tumble sideways, spilling their toxic contents on the landscape in a gesture too familiar in our times, where pollution is reviled but ignored at the same time. Next to the cans an over-sized crow rips at the garments of a scarecrow, mocking its purpose, rendering it useless and making the scarecrow worthy of it death’s head crown.

To the far right Humpty Dumpty doesn’t fall because of his precarious perch on the wall. He falls because the integrity of the wall is degraded; crumbling beneath him which in some way represents the frail foundations on which we depend so often yet fail to support us securely just the same.

The sky is a duality of night and day with both the sun and moon as passive observers of the activity below. Their double presence represents the continuum of time, constantly flowing in perpetuity.

Between the sun and moon, Mother Goose takes flight like some benign fairy tale witch. She acts as a thematic thread, connecting the symbol-drenched stories of childhood nursery rhymes and fairy tales with the contemporary, adult-themed imagery in the painting. And yes, that’s a Canada goose…

What more can you expect from us fur-trading hockey players chugging maple syrup, scarfing poutine and watching the northern lights astride a seven foot bull moose?

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Here we go round the prickly apple at 5 o’clock in the morning

A painting also known as
The Hollow Man

Canadian Art - Paintings by Stephen Gibb

The painting is an allegorical blend of biblical, nursery rhyme and psychological references, taking cues from T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men.

Stephen Gibb

, oil

panel

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Canadian Artist Stephen Gibb

By Stephen Gibb | Published: 10/01/2017

Opening the chocolate door that leads to the room where my ideas come from

Canadian Artist

Stephen Gibb

Canadian

Revenge of the Sycophant Scorned

What I bring to the art world as a Canadian artist is my idiomatic perspective on Surrealism. Dubbed by some as Bubblegum Surrealism or Pop Surrealism, I use the form to convey ideas in a pictorial and symbolic way using our rich visual culture to pull from. Often borrowing from nursery rhymes, Mother Goose and Grimm’s Fairy Tales, I take imagery of established conventions of childhood story telling and update them into adult themes.

In the above image I have clearly appropriated the image of Humpty Dumpty. His frail frame and cautious life-under-threat existence is the perfect emblem for the existential human. In this situation he is not perilously teetering on a wall but safely enthroned on a cushioned chair.

The real threat comes from the enraged monstrous head that is either poised to bite or is actively screaming at poor Humpty. The head-monster is strangling a chicken (old school end-of-life method for chickens) while in his skull gestates an embryonic spectre of death which opposes the potential of life-the standard symbolism associated with growth in the womb or within an egg.

To make matters worse, there seems to be an even more repulsive monster consuming a chicken leg at the top. On the wall hangs a portrait of a fried egg which brings the chicken/egg theme full circle. Like some ancestral painting it immortalizes an egg in an aborted stage of development.

My intent isn’t to impart a rigid, fixed meaning to the painting but to suggest a direction for the viewer to explore. There are some obvious themes and there are some that are more subtle. The transformative concepts of life, and mortality are readily available to the viewer as well as the personal associations they may draw from the objects themselves. There is also a narrative that presents itself through the title of the piece. The “Sycophant” is embodied by the head-monster and his rage is directed towards his one-time master Humpty Dumpty, royally perched on his throne. One can only guess what caused the revolt, but I suspect the spectre of death had something to do with it all…

See if you can break the code on these paintings…

Persistence of decay

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Revenge of the Sycophant Scorned

Artist:

Stephen Gibb

Dimensions:

2’

×

2’

Materials:

oil

on

panel

Canadian artist Stephen Gibb's painting Happy!

Happy! — Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel, 2020

For more on Canadian Artist Stephen Gibb take a little trip to folllow Stephen Gibb on Instagram

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•

While Canada may be best known for hockey, maple syrup and poutine it also has a rich history in the arts and literature as being a detached point of perspective from which to do profound field studies on the United States. As the nearest sibling to America, Canada has been infiltrated by its culture, invaded by its advertising, amused and confused by its politics and saturated by its media. Where better than to observe the crucible of western culture and watch it bubble over…?

Bubblegum Surrealism: Stephen Gibb – Artist Statement, pop surrealism canada, canadian artist.
(Or, at least a feeble attempt to excuse my behaviour to those present with good taste)
My artwork weaves an eclectic tapestry of cultural and social influences. At one moment it may make a surreal single-punch-line comment on Canadian pop culture while the next it may construct a complex and playful diorama of surrealism probing into the outer perimeters of human nature and surrealism.
I am often categorized as a Canadian Artist surrealism but I’d begrudgingly prefer to tag it as existential editorial cartoon realism (Canadian bubblegum surrealism), just because it sounds more intelligent and funny at the same time. The work holds a certain surreal reverence and faithfulness to reality mimicry but leans away enough to fall in the shadow of the “uncanny valley*”, the area where the mind is unsettled by what looks real enough but couldn’t possible
be. It is in this realm, theoretically, that the mind’s gamma waves are super-stimulated and brain activity resembles fireworks. I resolve that this accounts for the broad reactions my work garners from observers, that ranges from contemptuous dismissal to enthusiastic exuberance. We are all wired differently.
The medium is the method, which has been a faithful deployment of oil painting and traditional Surreal Canadian Artist techniques, such as glazing and the occasional dalliance into chiaroscuro. The richness achieved by layers of thinned oil paint on MDF panels always adds an interesting luminous quality to the final piece.
My direction as of late has been to devote more to composing on the panels rather than in sketches. I’m intrigued by the more spontaneous and gratifying results of ideas presenting themselves in the process rather than in the planning, hence the falloff in the recent output of sketches. Often a core image or
concept dictates subliminally as to how the composition manifests itself. Canadian Artist see for more Canadian pop surrealism.

Posted in Canadian art, Canadian Artist, Canadian Artist Stephen Gibb, Canadian painter, Canadian Pop Surrealism, Canadian Surrealism, Stephen Gibb, surreal artist, Surrealism | Tagged canada, canadian, canadian art, canadian artist, canadian pop art, canadian pop surrealism, canadian surrealism, painter, pop surrealism, pop surrealism canada, stephen gibb, steve gibb, surrealism | Comments closed

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Contemporary artist is lost in the wilderness…

Canadian surrealist painter Stephen Gibb takes a mind-bending look at contemporary art, pop culture and social commentary with his painting You Are Out Of Your Mind!

Life’s A Trip

Moon Faces

Laughing all the way to the grave

Laughing in the Face of Death – Stephen Gibb, oil on panel, 2017

Frog Prince Anatomy: Analytical dissection of The Frog Prince At The Gates Of Decay

Originally posted at:

Bubblegum Surrealism: Stephen Gibb – Artist Statement concerning pop surrealism in Canada as a contemporary Canadian artist. Canadian art is a fractured story of borrowing and appropriation from all cultures. Canadian Surrealism is the category what I most often associate my art with.

Canadian cuisine: Canada 150

Canadian art has an identity crisis

Here we go round the prickly apple at 5 o’clock in the morning

Opening the chocolate door that leads to the room where my ideas come from

Canadian Artist

Stephen Gibb

Canadian

Revenge of the Sycophant Scorned

See if you can break the code on these paintings…

Persistence of decay

Revenge of the Sycophant Scorned

Artist:

Stephen Gibb

Dimensions:

2’

×

2’

Materials: oil

oil

on

panel

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Canadian surrealist painter Stephen Gibb takes a mind-bending look at contemporary art,
pop culture and social commentary with his painting You Are Out Of Your Mind!

Materials:

oil