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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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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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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The Allegorical Baked Potato of the Apocalypse — Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel, 2020

The painting personifies potatoes and examines them in their natural “potato environment” to reveal subtle aspects of human nature and behaviour in a fun and absurdly roundabout way.

Starting at the top, the central image of the baked potato radiates like some kind of deity in the sky. I thought of the baked potato as the ultimate expression of a potato, but there is also a sense of menace about it. An idealized and divine representation often alludes to some unattainable ideal, or abstract aspiration like a quest for the Holy Grail. Its ominous position looks like it could be an apocalyptic meteor falling to earth or a god lording over its humble subjects on their earthly domain below.

The salt and pepper shakers are two sides of a cosmic dichotomy. The anger and rage of the pepper is offset by the delight of the salt. Like some yin-yang balance in the heavens, they overlook the activity below, sprinkling their essences, which are ironically typical potato seasonings. Again, there is a divine detachment, but an active involvement in the goings on below.

At the middle left is the gravy boat containing the smile potatoes in a symbol of indulgence and decadence. Playing on the metaphoric strength of what gravy connotes (as well as being the perfect topping for potatoes), the smiles gleefully bathe in it, though one sinks abashedly below the surface. The reason for his demeanour is the sudden arrival of the scorned green onion (a potato garnish), whose emotional display of anger at being excluded from the privileged experience of the smiles may also be an expression of FOMO. Class struggle and failed aspirations could be construed from this encounter.

Canadian Pop Surrealism Art of Stephen Gibb

At the green onion’s heel is a solemn memorial to the great potato famine, acknowledging a historic event that brutally demonstrated the importance of potatoes as a staple in the western diet.

The potato in the lower left corner is a commentary on identity. Whether he is dissatisfied with his appearance or wanting to alter it, he weighs his Mr. Potato Head options laid out before him. Our societies obsession about appearance is reflected in his dilemma but the ambiguity of his actions (is he shedding the disguise or donning it?) make for a more personal interpretation. The bowler hat reaches back to historical class-distinction/status issues as well.

Next to Mr. Potato Head is a curly fry. Twisted and dizzy from the nature of it’s own corkscrew design it symbolizes the disorientation and confusion of modern life.

Canadian Pop Surrealism Art of Stephen Gibb

Above the curly fry is a pierogi huddled behind a giant potato chip. The pierogi represent a tradition or culture of the past, an anachronism, a hand-made food cowering behind the supreme, mass-produced junk food of contemporary times. The clash between generations is amplified by the demeanours of both figures—the demure, wilting perogi and the exuberant and bold posture of the chip. The potato chip holds aloft a potato masher and potato peeler, two items that, to a potato, could be identified as weapons. As the chip skids though some chip dip he is effectively appeased by the presentation of a French fry, which seems to allay him from his aggressive approach. The old potato dispenses this pacifier from his dwindling supply echoing the basis of many economic theories. He is an archaic holdover from a bygone era, with his broccoli/cheese brain and traditional potato appearance intact. Blind and forlorn, he dominates the scene but his frailty is poised to give way to the aggression of the next generation.

The pile of mashed potatoes in the centre bottom lustfully licks the melting butter—the very thing, which in turn makes him delicious, in a circular, self-referent absurdity (such is life).

Canadian Pop Surrealism Art of Stephen Gibb

On the far right bottom a tater tot observes some new potatoes, innocent and yet to be influenced by the crazy world around them. The tater tot is an example of a very processed and modified version of a potato so the contrast to the fresh, new, “baby” potatoes is more poignant.

Observing all the activity is the slightly frightened and definitely agitated bottle of ketchup. Another condiment for potatoes, he conceals himself, isolated and voyeuristic, trying to make sense of all the activity.

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Surrealism Famous For Stimulating Creativity

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Vengeful Wrath of the Chocolate Gods — 36″ x 24″, oil on panel

The vengeful god in the clouds is nothing new and most often is used in pop culture for humourous effect. It’s really an absurd notion—an angry god? So what could be more absurd than a god of chocolate? In ancient times (maybe even today) there were beliefs that sustained polytheism where a multitude of gods each have distinct functions—the god of the sea, the god of fire, the god of love. Why not a god of chocolate? I love chocolate and why shouldn’t it have its own deity lording over the domain of chocolate land.

The rest of the painting is just silly aspects of chocolate experiencing their chocolate reality—living, dying, being consumed and generally enjoying their chocolatyness.

This got me thinking about the creative process and how some simple prompt can lead you into depths unexplored. People often ask me where my ideas come from and through my grinding teeth I try to answer cordially. Thoughts, that’s all they are. Thoughts that get turned into images and recorded in oil paint—endless thoughts swirling all around you waiting to be plucked and converted into something wonderful.

Brian Eno had a system of cards called the Oblique Strategy cards he formulated with Peter Schmidt that essentially were simple thoughts or instructions designed to help promote creativity. I had been collecting a series of thoughts and when I discovered Eno’s cards, realized I was doing the same thing.

Although they could be construed as motivational in tone, if they are accessed during a point of creative stagnation, they may jump-start the creativity process back into high gear.

Here are my creativity-booster phrases. Pick one at random. Think of them as instructions to open your creative block — or Hallmark Cards from the Twilight Zone:

Surrealism Famous For Stimulating Creativity

Strip away the pre-supposed dignity of art

Celebrate the genius of the audience

Disrupt the universe in your own special way

Art is a veil of obfuscation hiding a prize

Rattle your mental cage and awaken the sleeping philosopher within

Defy the gravity of consciousness

Make art to be photographed and studied later

Challenge yourself with something counter-intuitive

Meditate on you idiosyncrasies

Hold the colour in your mind’s eye

Release yourself of fear by trapping it in your art

Look at clichés from different angles

Revisit a repressed thought

Contemplate the perspective of the art viewing the audience

Mine your soul for a gem to share

Loose yourself in the math of composition

Take the most obvious solution and do the opposite

Bask in the glow of the viewer’s confusion

Consider the chemistry of the brain

Hide something in plain sight

Portray the human side of evil

Invent your own dichotomy

Redirect in response to the last thing you created

Reach through the curtain of time and touch your younger self on the shoulder

Label an emotion that does not yet exist

Let the viewer know that you are watching

Make the art self-aware

Engineer tension

Set traps on the way to the most obvious conclusion

Derail a preconception

Expose a subtle notion with flamboyance

Direct attention to absurdity

Conceal a secret within the content

Distil the uncanny essence of ugliness

Pose a question and leave it hanging

Shine the light on an open-ended conclusion

Fearlessly diminish the precious

Invert the sacred and profane

Investigate a theme that terrifies you

Mock yourself

Listen closely to music that irritates you

Construct 10 answers to the question “Why?”

Let something random dictate direction

Abandon your gimmick

Create as if you are an abstractionist—if you are an abstractionist try surrealism

Look at the pure joy of futility

A childhood game is waiting to be rediscovered

Consider two outcomes and flip a coin

Make an imperfection a focal point

Share a memory of extreme profundity

Dare to confront your inner fool

Invent your own version of reality

Travel one second back in time

Stretch the rules just to the breaking point and let go

Try on a point of view in conflict with your own

Ask yourself a question and don’t answer back

Reduce your complexity to cave-dweller basics

View yourself from 100 years in the future

Sum up your process to a phantom biographer

Tell yourself it doesn’t really matter and is not that important

Let a ghost direct your hand

Contradict your present state of mind

Plan on taking one step forward and two steps back

Ponder the noise and listen for a message

Reflect on all the people you have encountered

Recall an idea you forgot that you forgot about

Surrealism Famous For Stimulating Creativity

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Surrealism Famous For Stimulating Creativity

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

The idea behind this painting was to portray sheer joy and happiness sloughing off the evil and darkness of the world like a snake sheds its skin. However, I wanted to depict the happiness in an artificial surrounding (fake trees, fake clouds, fake graphic sunburst) to suggest that sometimes happiness is an illusion. Contrasting the cartoon aspects with more realistic depictions of trees and clouds (at the edges) was my way of acknowledging the very real presence of darkness and evil in people’s lives. Part of the challenge of the painting was to attempt to have the happy face in full illumination and push everything else into a more subdued shadow.

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Biography
Stephen Gibb is a Canadian artist and works in the small town of Amherstburg, in southern Ontario, and maintains a second studio in Windsor. He has a B.F.A. in visual arts from the University of Windsor and is currently represented by the St. Germain gallery in Toronto. His brand of Canadian Pop Surrealism 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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“Keeping it Together, Walking on Eggshells” — Surrealism painting by Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel, 2019

Keeping it Together, Walking on Eggshells” — Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel, 2019

In a world where we have to mind our Ps and Qs, more and more, the notion of political correctness inspired this very literal translation of walking on eggshells (being careful to not offend or do something wrong).

My little monkey on the left is fast-tracking his evolution with some human juice but is he prepared for the balancing act of being human—trying to keep it all together, physically and mentally. Confused, disoriented and without caution the human trundles onward, with no way back and no way to retrace his steps, he navigates the perilous landscape.

I laugh at the Sun in headgear, the egg protecting himself with an eggbeater and the pylon on the precipice. Sometimes the humour just presents itself and I can’t resist. I find that dollops of levity can balance out the serious nature of some of the messages.

The traveller walks in confusion, barely holding his liquefying head from rupture unaware of the solution (the single combination lock) that hovers within reach. All around the landscape crumbles and the very thing that sustains him (bread) self immolates in a futile attempt to mark his passing and leave a trail to return on. Of course the crow and his foreboding symbolism, eats the crumbs to obliterate the path of return.

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* Surrealism painting is a dumb term that I would not normally use but may help a search engine land you on this posting.

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While pondering a fun house setting for a painting, I became aware that the whole reason for a fun house is to artificially induce fear in the patron. It became clear that fear or phobias would then become the central theme to the painting. Taking a smattering of common phobias and integrating them into my surreal art, here is the result:

“Fun House of Phobias” — Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel 2019

Meditation on how fear shapes our lives

Fear fills us with anxiety.
It makes us avoid situations and it can make us seek out situations.
It forces us to overpay for things we don’t need.
It urges us buy cheap knockoffs.
It suffocates us in our inadequacies.
It erodes our status and drives our aspirations.
It ruins relationships and drowns us in paranoia.
It stokes the fires of jealousy.
It keeps us guarded and incapable of contact.
It waits for us at night.
It hides at the bus stop, dark alley, and foreboding basement.
It lurks behind the strangers face.
It slinks in the shadows of the unknown.
It watches us as we sleep.
It shows us what is wrong with the world.
It crushes us with what we see in ourselves.
It contaminates every uncertainty.
It rationalizes our irrationality.
It confuses our affirmations.
It makes us doubt the truth.
It dumbs us down and puffs us up.
It lies out loud and inside our heads.
It guides our thoughts and haunts our dreams.
It disrupts the peace with blunt force.
It looms like a dark cloud above us.
It screams on the dark pier of surreal art.
It is chronic and unrelenting.
It removes our calm and unsettles the waters.
It hints at the onset of madness.
It overthrows the balance.
It leads us to the edge.
It threatens us with doom.
It grips us like the icy hands of death.

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Crossing the lines between the supernatural, the unexplained and the realm of science that is just “weird” offers up a rich visual spectrum of possibilities for a painting.

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

Taking straight-forward connections to magic words like magic 8-ball, magic mushroom, magic carpet, magic eye (vacuum tube), and combining them with tools of magicians and alchemists becomes a jumbled image of loosely associated items and characters.

Items like a tarot card, crystal ball, evil eye, ouroboros, an infinity symbol, gold, lead (pencil), cups, sword (dagger), coin, wand and voodoo doll all add to the mystical symbols that historically are linked to the performing of magic.

The coloured balls represent the four elements—earth, air, fire, water, while the left-hand-side hand represents black magic and the right white magic.

Science as magic is represented by Einstein’s theory of relativity, as he watches the baby traversing the sky in an arch, arriving as a corpse on the opposite side. Instead of a rabbit coming out of the hat we have a pair of rabbit-ears (TV antenna) which echoes the technology represented by the cathode tube, the egg-yolk light bulb and electric arc.

Is a surreal artist supposed to access their unfiltered subconscious or can their work be informed by content and concepts pulled from language and assembled in a compelling composition? Andre Breton would argue in favour of the former. I will defend my preference for the latter and let my painting act as support to my argument. Whatever side of the surreal fence you find yourself on, it all boils down to your own personal preference and willingness to accept that good things come in all sorts of packages.

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Pop Surrealism has a broad range of influences, a reverence for art history, an unsettling presence and a wicked sense of humour. One thing that unites the pop surrealist community is their comfortable and insatiable relationship with weirdness. If describing in words what is and what isn’t pop surrealism, one only has to look at the work to get the distinction.

To me, pop surrealism and lowbrow are just labels that I fit easily into. It’s a category that helps you describe my work to someone else, and to locate it or discover it Online. Chances are you are reading this right now because of some connection the “movement”. At any rate, you are here, so take a minute to plunge deeper into my world…

Can You Pass The Marshmallow Test?
In this painting I explore themes that relate to psychology. If you have a working knowledge of some of experimental psychology’s fundamentals, you probably have a good idea what’s going on here. There are effigies of Freud and Skinner, as well as references to Rorschach, Pavlov and other classic research experiments. Plus a few little random things I wanted to add.

Head Trip to the Uncanny Valley of the Shadow
This painting began as an exploration of “the journey” or “the trip” and because of the connotations took on some drug references as well. Aside from the planes, trains and automobiles and the drug paraphernalia, there is the flaming skull, which I imagine is the hell of addiction. The so-called “loss of ego” is symbolized by the crown floating away, while the desperate lizard (lizard brain) tries to stay with it.

Give Me A Break
Taking idioms of the word “break” and incorporating them into visual symbols was the thought behind this painting. Break the bank, heart broken, break the spell, etc. Though this may have been the motivation and the roots of the composition, my mind took it in many different directions as well.

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

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