Symmetry is an integral part of that world. Looking at a typical Sam Gibbons painting, I imagine a multitude of simple forces at odds with one another. Like one side of the face competing with the other, the right hand making a fist at the left, or two lines of identical children engaged in a fierce game of tug-of-war. The equilibrium is stunning. “Sickhead,” for example, is an onslaught of ominous images done in rich tones of teal and grey. Snouts, pitchforks, big bad wolves and mouths agape make up a complicated landscape that only increases in intricacy as it culminates near the center. At the focal point of the piece is a Mickey Mouse-looking head, split down the middle, housing a tentacled creature I can only assume is diabolical in nature. It’s strange and surreal, yet seems to make sense.
“My early work was more narrative than it is now. Not so much that I would have recurring characters but it was cartoony and dealt with personal stories. Since then, that’s sort of changed. I didn’t want the narrative to take over the work, so I had to think of a way to negate that. Putting the scenes into a symmetrical design sort of negates the narrative, and makes it more about shape and color, or size and form.
… I still loved Robert Crumb and Peter Bagge, so I kept working and drawing and eventually inflated the two worlds into something of my own.”
A big reason I started the symmetry thing was because of a painting I did when I was first starting grad school. It was based on a famous work by Jan van Eyck called, “The Ghent Altarpiece.” It’s a symmetrical piece depicting several different scenes: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the annunciation of Mary… I did a piece based around that about the relationship between male and female, and good versus evil. I started seeing the possibilities of things I could do using symmetry.”
The ornate quality of the drawings as well as Gibbons’ penchant for iconography and symbolism is reminiscent of another Dutch painter from the 15th century, Hieronymus Bosch. Bosch’s work is heavy on depictions of debauchery, hedonism and mankind’s constant moral failings. His most famous work, “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” is a convoluted comment on the fragile line between good and evil, a display of human innocence somehow unaware of consequence, not unlike Gibbons’ work. “Bosch?” Gibbons says, “Yeah, he’s great. His characters are messed up too.”
Satire is another strong, underlying factor in Gibbons’ paintings. Saccharine demons wielding guns mingle with docile-looking dogs in a piece titled, “Bone Hero.” A female politician raises a salutatory arm in front of a graveyard full of bones in “Flag Wizard.” Not to mention the obvious allusions to sex, violence and pop-culture.
“My paintings are partially, but not wholly, satirical. My own personal narrative is in there as well. The last series I worked on, there are flashes of U.S. flags, and people copulating and violence but it was also a rough time in my life when I was painting those. My mom was diagnosed with cancer and actually died around the same time I was working on that series. So I sort of went on autopilot and just kept painting. Now, when I look at them all together, I can see that there was a lot of death in the work. I don’t set out to make a comment on certain things in particular but they sort of come out in their own way.”
Popular culture often makes its way into the pores of personal interpretation, provoking inspiration in unusual ways. “I watch a lot of cartoons. A lot of the Adult Swim stuff like AquaTeen Hunger Force, Ren & Stimpy, South Park… I don’t know if that’s inspiration. I like looking at other artists too. As I mentioned before, I like Peter Saul, underground comics, Peter Bagge’s Hate comics and this character he created, Buddy Bradley. Bagge has a real wild gesturing of characters; they get real angry and real exaggerated. The character’s teeth get real sharp when they get angry, and that’s something that’s showed up in my work. A lot of sharp teeth. Just little things like that.”
Ren & Stimpy aside, another important aspect of Gibbons’ work is his decision to snub traditional canvas. Opting to work on medium-density fiberboard cut out to fit the exact outline of each painting, the result is a carnival of spontaneous shapes and characters, unbound by borders.
“I was using rectangular canvas but the drawings were becoming more involved, and the edges of the work were getting forced into these enclosed spaces. At the time, I was working for Frank Stella [an abstract painter and printmaker currently living in New York]. A friend of mine got me the job and we were commissioned to build these large, supporting panels for his smoke collages, the giant paper collages he was making with irregular edges. He needed something to support them, so we cut out large panels with a jigsaw, put them on supports and mounted the paperwork right on them. I thought, ‘Hey, this could work for the drawings I’m working on.’ At the time I was considering my thesis project too. Working with Stella made me realize I could translate the method to paintings mounted on the wall.”