Here we go round the prickly apple at 5 o’clock in the morning – Stephen Gibb, oil on panel, 2017
“Fun House of Phobias” — Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel 2019
Pictorial Puzzles for a Post-human Paleontologist
Keeping it Together, Walking on Eggshells” — Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel, 2019
Caught, by Stephen Gibb, oil on panel, 36″ x 24″, 2018
Last Days Of the Plague — Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel, 2020
Frog Prince at the Gates of Decay, painting by Canadian surrealist Stephen Gibb, 48″ x 36″, oil on panel, 2017
The reluctant clown candidate held aloft by blind zealots
Software and Clockworks
Revenge of the sycophant scorned
Happy cookie
Cheesy Dorito
Happy Peanut Butter
Freaky Donut
Self-absorbed Popsicle
Reese Peanut Butter Cup
All I want’s to be left on a block of ice
Sympathy for the Rat King
Spinning plates
Keeping mum in the presence of a toxic personality
If I blow your mind, what will you do for me?
Frantic preservation of essence in the face of imminent contamination
One bad apple
Maniacal menace of the culture colossus on auto pilot
Laughing my fool head off
The cannibal bubblegum’s sugary lust of hidden truths
Chicken and the egg
The emperor’s new confection
Heavy thoughts
With the promise of chocolate Humpty gets duped by the clockwork carrot
Oh, Crap!
Dark side of the flaming moon
Mastery of the social graces and the maladroit tea party
Carl sleeps and dreams of being forever Jung
The thief exploits a temporary lapse in security
The sourdough dolly and her salivating solid-door ally choose either salad or surreal cereal as Sir Eel and Salvador Dali look on
Krampus in the box
Last of the carnivorous unicorns
Darkness falls on the whitebread world
Stephen Gibb Artist Statement
(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 comment 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 and funny at the same time. The work holds
a certain 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 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 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.
see stephengibb.com for more
Canadian Pop Surrealism by painter Stephen Gibb
Canadian Pop Surrealism
Dopamine
Here we go round the prickly apple at 5 o’clock in the morning – Stephen Gibb, oil on panel, 2017
“Fun House of Phobias” — Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel 2019
Pictorial Puzzles for a Post-human Paleontologist
Keeping it Together, Walking on Eggshells” — Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel, 2019
Caught, by Stephen Gibb, oil on panel, 36″ x 24″, 2018
Last Days Of the Plague — Stephen Gibb, 36″ x 24″, oil on panel, 2020
Frog Prince at the Gates of Decay, painting by Canadian surrealist Stephen Gibb, 48″ x 36″, oil on panel, 2017
The reluctant clown candidate held aloft by blind zealots
Software and Clockworks
Revenge of the sycophant scorned
Happy cookie
Cheesy Dorito
Happy Peanut Butter
Freaky Donut
Self-absorbed Popsicle
Reese Peanut Butter Cup
All I want’s to be left on a block of ice
Sympathy for the Rat King
Spinning plates
Keeping mum in the presence of a toxic personality
If I blow your mind, what will you do for me?
Frantic preservation of essence in the face of imminent contamination
One bad apple
Maniacal menace of the culture colossus on auto pilot
Laughing my fool head off
The cannibal bubblegum’s sugary lust of hidden truths
Chicken and the egg
The emperor’s new confection
Heavy thoughts
With the promise of chocolate Humpty gets duped by the clockwork carrot
Oh, Crap!
Dark side of the flaming moon
Mastery of the social graces and the maladroit tea party
Carl sleeps and dreams of being forever Jung
The thief exploits a temporary lapse in security
The sourdough dolly and her salivating solid-door ally choose either salad or surreal cereal as Sir Eel and Salvador Dali look on
Krampus in the box
Last of the carnivorous unicorns
Darkness falls on the whitebread world
Stephen Gibb Artist Statement
(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 comment 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 and funny at the same time. The work holds
a certain 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 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 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.
see stephengibb.com for more
Stephen Gibb Canadian Surrealism
Stephen Gibb Canadian Pop Surrealism
Stephen Gibb Canadian Pop Surrealism