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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