Ben Frost. This Way Up

About

Known for his kaleidoscopic Pop Art, mash-up paintings that take inspiration from areas as diverse as graffiti, collage, photo-realism, and signwriting, Ben Frost’s instantly recognizable take on pop culture twists up everyday iconography from the world’s biggest brands. Subverting meaning and messages from the mainstream media, the artist’s scything commentary on advertising, entertainment, and politics is both confrontational and controversial.

Regarding his upcoming show, Frost shares, “In my new exhibition This Way Up I explore the visual language of advertising and branding to question our relationship with the products we consume. By juxtaposing everyday packaging with beloved cartoon characters and mascots, I aim to highlight the absurdity of our materialistic culture and the ways in which it shapes our identities and values.

The process of my work begins with a small package, perhaps a cereal box, a pharmaceutical package, or a fast-food container, onto which I hand-paint unlikely characters that misbehave and unabashedly engage with the very substances they promote. I enjoy breathing life into these characters and encouraging them into depictions of indulgence and defiance against the mega-corporations they serve. From mischievous candy characters engaging in hedonistic escapades to pharmaceutical mascots embracing their vices, each scene confronts the often-uncomfortable realities of society's frenzied consumption.

These miniature pieces are then scaled up into larger paintings on wooden assemblages, to create oversized re-interpretations of the original package. The use of large individual timber panels, often bolted together along packaging 'fold lines' adds a tactile element to the artwork that invites viewers to engage in its construction. Its size and almost sculptural nature elevate the idea of a package as a throw-away vessel that once contained a commodity, to the status of a cultural artifact. The banality of a bar code, a specific warning label, fold line or a batch number now almost totemic and laden with symbolism and significance.”

The title suggests the idea of orientation, both physically and metaphorically. Just as one might encounter a package with "This Way Up" printed on it, the exhibition encourages the viewer to consider the ways we perceive our often confusing and disorienting society.