Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again…*

My obsession with Humpty Dumpty is both visual philosophical in nature. I am drawn to the famous egg visually, through his numerous portrayals in children’s books. His ovoid shape and cephalic body create a disconcerting strangeness that is hard to forget. Often styled with an equally strange grimace his impact on impressionable children is assured. One of the more famous portrayals is that by John Tenniel in Lewis Carrol’s Through the Looking-Glass (1872). Tenniel’s version of Humpty Dumpty with his wide slit mouth and creepy arched brows has stuck with me and penetrated many of my own characters in my paintings.

Aside from being physically creepy Humpty is also an egg. Frail, vulnerable and awkward he becomes a perfect symbol for the existential human. We are in constant state of alert when it comes to self-preservation and safety, something Humpty took too lightly. I often insert Humpty into my paintings as a symbolic representation of myself. Sometime he is just included as a frail human witness participating in my jumbled scenarios. He becomes a sympathetic entity that the viewer can hopefully identify with.

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* The rhyme does not explicitly state that the subject is an egg, possibly because it may have been originally posed as a riddle. There are also various theories of an original “Humpty Dumpty”. One, advanced by Katherine Elwes Thomas in 1930 and adopted by Robert Ripley, posits that Humpty Dumpty is King Richard III of England, depicted as humpbacked in Tudor histories and particularly in Shakespeare’s play, and who was defeated, despite his armies, at Bosworth Field in 1485.

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pop surrealism peanut butter

Anyone who creates something remotely surreal owes a debt to Freud, for delineating the concept of the “unconscious” mind, Andre Bretton, for formalizing the surreal process into a movement and Salvador Dali for rising to the top as their darling poster boy.

It was Dali who captured in oil paint the highly rendered, dream-like imagery of the wandering mind into a form that was both disturbing and intoxicating. Dali spawned thousands of imitators, emulators and admirers, and love him or hate him, his influence today is undeniable. He may have borrowed from the godfather of the surreal, Hieronymus Bosch, but as one time card-carrying contemporary of Surrealism, he was the painter exemplar.

Persistence of Dali

I often hear comments from people that my work reminds them of Dali and I forgive them for being naïve but also understand that it’s just a convenient way to tag me. As a simple point of reference that helps them to share in some kind of “art” experience, I know I should be more tolerant. It used to make me insane but now I’ve become numb to it.

Dopamine

But really, why should I protest? People are making associations; connections, conclusions that may not be particularly original but at least they are exhibiting what essentially makes surrealism tick – the instinctive reflex for humans to seek meaning out of chaos. If this is how the “audience” makes sense of their perceptions, how does the artist encode their intentions?

There was a reason I mentioned Dali above because I am now going to use him and his ilk to demonstrate my thought process in explain how I came to paint the way I paint. Often asked, “Where do your ideas come from?” I can now attempt to expose some of that process in a few clumsy paragraphs.

When I first encountered the work of Bosch, Breughel, Dali, De Chirico, Man Ray, Ernst, Magritte and others, I felt an immediate connection. No one had to explain or guide me through the subtleties of what I experienced. It was like a puzzle that had no conclusion, but was fun to unravel. That unsettling sense of familiar and unfamiliar blended into one form, touching the matchstick to the fuse in my powder keg mind is what drew me to the surreal. Something dreamlike, something innocent and perverse, something lurking in the shadows whispering inaudible prompts to draw you in, spin you blindfolded and shove you back into the world.

The lovelorn and the cycle of lies

This is what art should be for me. Something that generates ideas, thoughts, and discussions and that just doesn’t pose as an answer. It should be embraced for the conceptual nudge it gives and not for some phantom truth that it strives for. It should be open-ended and mysterious, to open the floodgates of your reasoning and stir the colliding thoughts in a pot of egoless abandon. It should go with you once you leave it, and gnaw at your sleep. It should soak into your skin and enter your bloodstream. It should surprise you when it unexpectedly returns in your daily activity.

When confronted by surrealist art people are often hung up on meaning. “What does it mean?” is asked in haste and the question precedes the act of seeing. It also becomes the blind alley leading them away from self-discovery. To process without instruction is a liberty we should embrace. This is your chance to be creative with nothing more than a visual stimulus to get your cart moving. The elements of a surreal composition can set a tone and set you free to associate whatever idiosyncratic notions you may chance upon. There is no rulebook, map or schematic logic to follow. It’s up to you.

Facebook Fun

Revenge of the sycophant scorned – 2016

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…?

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Pop Art Peanut Butter

Pop Art Popsicle

Pop Art Reese Peanut Butter Cup

Pop Art Happy Candy

Pop Art Happy Cookie

Pop Art Donut

Pop Art Dorito

Pop Art Happy Pie

Pop Art Dopamine

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Thank you for joining us in the off-kilter world of Stephen Gibb, where surrealism and Mother Goose are turned on their heads. Take time to explore and ponder his mysterious paintings, that delve into the anxieties and joys of contemporary life, his musing on human behaviour, philosophy, and the innermost workings of his angular mind. Let’s hear from the artist himself…

(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
single-punch-line commentary on pop culture, while the next it may construct a complex and playful diorama
probing into the outer perimeters of human nature.

My work is often categorized as pop surrealism but I’d begrudgingly prefer to tag it as existential editorial
cartoon realism, just because it sounds more intelligent, pretentious and funny at the same time. The work holds
a certain reverence and faithfulness to mimicking reality but leans far enough away 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 exploding 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 oil painting
techniques, such as glazing and the occasional dalliance into chiaroscuro. The richness achieved
by layers of thinned oil paint on wood panels always adds an interesting luminous vitality to the final
piece. Pop Surrealism meets Pop Art

My direction as of late has been to devote more to composing on the panels rather than in pre-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. pop art peanut butter, pop surrealism peanut butter, pop art cookie, pop surrealism cookie, pop art popsicle, pop surrealism popsicle,

Canadian Pop Surrealism meets Pop Art

Pop Surrealism meets Pop Art appeared first on Stephen Gibb.

Canadian Surrealism is confronted head-on by Stephen Gibb’s Bubblegum Surrealism in an upside down Mother Goose world of humour and social commentary.

Always in the state of flux, my perspective on the world and how it informs my artwork is in constant modulation. Part of the input process involves pairing themes and concepts with emotion and contrast, which is then output using my Mother Goose meets Mad Magazine style of Pop Surrealism.

As children, we come to understand abstract concepts like morality and virtue in the form of nursery rhyme and fairy tale messages. What I imagine is the evolution of that form into an adult iteration, inducing an inner turmoil the viewer has to reconcile by navigating the more mature themes disguised as children’s story imagery.

What is perceived at the start is a layer of humourous innocence but what is arrived at in the end is a complex and hopefully intriguing conclusion.

The Panpsychic Candy Apple, Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel, 2020

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Canadian Surrealism.
Stephen Gibb – Canadian Surrealism disguised as an Artist Statement (Or, at least a feeble attempt to excuse my behaviour to those present with good taste)
What exactly is Canadian Surrealism? What exactly is Surrealism? Formally established in the 1920s by Andre Breton and others, it has persisted and evolved, becoming a shadow of itself but also becoming widely recognized and exploited by media and popular culture. Canadian Surrealism may at its root have a foundation in the indigenous art of Canada. Mystical, spiritual and certainly grounded in the realm of dreams the resonance of that foundation can’t help but manifest itself in Canadian Surrealism and Canadian Art. What I try to do as a surrealist is play with concepts and ideas that appear dreamlike but draw more from a symbolic and more allegorical mindset. A sense of humour also permeates my work, whether you find it funny or not, which I’m sure adds to the mystery and levels of understanding invested in the painting. Canadian Surrealism. Canadian Surrealism

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Surreal PBC Cup

Stephen Gibb, 2’x2′, oil on panel, 2016

See more paintings from 2016

Surreal PB Cup.
Artist Stephen Gibb – Canadian Pop Surrealism Artist.
The connection between the concept of consumerism and the objects and products consumed(literally) has been a recurring theme in my painting for years. I also like to anthropomorphize the products to give them an emotional dimension and character which in pop surrealism can then be integrated in a narrative including these characters. Surrealism has always delved into the realm where reality blurs into the dream world and making characters of inanimate objects also amps up the weirdness.
see stephengibb.com for more surreal PB cup. Surreal PB Cup, PB cup, reese cup, Canadian pop surrealism.

Join me on facebook for more Canadian Pop Surrealism

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Dopamine

Stephen Gibb, oil on panel, 2016

This surreal painting by Canadian artist Stephen Gibb portrays a commentary on consumerism symbolized by the central figure of the all-consuming-mouth monster devouring candy, pastries and chocolate. The central elements contain benign, candy-coloured characters but give way to the austere, menacing and depraved characters that loom on the fringes. The specter of death with it’s grindstone nose, the onion spirit and other unsavory images of decay, disgust and filth frame the sweet interior. The contrast between the desirable and the repulsive adds to the tension of the the concepts at battle.
The title “Dopamine” is in reference to the reward centres of the brain that get flooded with dopamine when stimulated by the powerful feelings of pleasure associated with sugar consumption; however, these excess neurotransmitter levels also take a long-term toll on brain chemistry and can even promote substance dependency.
Go to facebook for more Canadian Pop Surrealism and Bubblegum Surrealism images with links to more content and info.

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Bubblegum Surrealism: Stephen Gibb – Artist Statement, pop surrealism canada, canadian pop surrealism.
(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.
My work is often categorized as Canadian pop 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 oil painting
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 Surrealism
see stephengibb.com for more Canadian pop surrealism.

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