“THIS WAY UP” BEN FROST
May 18 – June 22, 2024
““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.”
On Saturday, May 18th, the Corey Helford Gallery in downtown Los Angeles will proudly present the latest solo show by Australian artist Ben Frost, titled "This Way Up," showcased in the Main Gallery.
Ben Frost is celebrated for his vibrant and transformative Pop Art paintings, which cleverly blend elements of graffiti, collage, photo-realism, and sign writing. His unique approach to pop culture reconfigures familiar imagery from global brands, offering a provocative twist on conventional iconography. Through his art, Frost delivers piercing critiques on advertising, entertainment, and politics, making bold and often contentious statements about the media-saturated world around us. This exhibition promises to engage viewers with its vivid, thought-provoking works that challenge the status quo.
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."
He adds, “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.”