{"id":87326,"date":"2024-10-16T07:55:28","date_gmt":"2024-10-16T14:55:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=87326"},"modified":"2024-10-25T14:27:10","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T21:27:10","slug":"mashing-up-the-mundane-steve-d-stones-deconstructed-pop-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/mashing-up-the-mundane-steve-d-stones-deconstructed-pop-dreams\/","title":{"rendered":"Mashing Up the Mundane: Steve D. Stones\u2019 Deconstructed Pop Dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Steve D. Stones, “Death & the Three-Eyed Martian Drive Up & Down My Neighborhood in a Convertible,” 2024, 30×40 in.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

You may have seen Steve D. Stones’<\/a> work at the Ogden Farmers Market: the flaming Barneys and fish-headed Edwardians alongside video game icons like Pikachu<\/i> and Mario<\/i> hanging out in trippy, offbeat worlds, all tangled up with Halloween masks and comic book chaos. Stones\u2019 art is a mashup of pop culture craziness, surreal vibes, and a cheeky attitude. And he\u2019s bringing that same energy to Gallery East at USU Price with Ad-Libbed Art: Pop Deconstruction<\/i>.<\/h4>\n

Stones’ paintings and collages pull apart familiar images from both classical art and mass media, and reassemble them into something vibrant and strange. Characters you may recognize from childhood are thrown into new, bizarre contexts where their usual charm becomes part of a much bigger, more chaotic commentary. In these works, the familiar isn\u2019t comforting\u2014it\u2019s strange, fragmented, and a little bit haunting.<\/h4>\n

In “Death & the Three-Eyed Martian Drive Up & Down My Neighborhood in a Convertible,” a grim reaper and a three-eyed alien cruise through a bright, Pop-art dreamscape. The whole scene feels absurd\u2014like death and aliens are just as everyday as your average trip to the mall. In “Snakes in the Bedroom #1” and “Snakes in the Bedroom #2,” the artist takes the familiar comfort of a bedroom and disturbs it with ominous elements like large snakes slithering on the floor and unsettling collage work in the background. The contrast between the “Home Sweet Home” sentiment on the wall and the chaotic, almost dream-like presence of the snakes creates a feeling of dissonance as Stones captures the eerie intrusion of anxiety or danger into the places we associate with comfort and safety.<\/h4>\n
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Installation view with “Snakes in My Bedroom #1” (2016), left. Image courtesy of Gallery East.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Installation view of Ad-Libbed Art: Pop Deconstruction<\/em>. Image courtesy of Gallery East.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In several works, Stones channels the vibrant energy of pop art icons like Roy Lichtenstein and Tom Wesselmann, while keeping his own cheeky, rebellious edge. In “Reclining Figure,” for example, the human form is rendered in broad, graphic lines reminiscent of pop art, but the chaotic background, filled with torn pieces of advertisements, disrupts the otherwise peaceful pose. In “Confrontation #V,” where two figures are caught in a tense moment, Stones\u2019 bold lines and vivid colors give the piece that classic pop art punch, while the torn-up ads bring a gritty, fragmented feel to the whole thing. The artist says he’s fascinated by the \u201coverlooked world of advertising and its impact on consumer behaviors\u201d and fills much of his background with these torn-up advertising mailers (see his Youtube video explaining the process).<\/h4>\n

The most striking works in this exhibit are those where Stones inverts his classical-pop dialectic, populating compositions that call to mind Baroque paintings with images from his\u00a0 <\/span>Gen X-childhood\u2014like the scene of a naked Betty Boop being carried away by Wolverine and a leering Bullwinkle, in a strange, back-street comic book version of “Rape of the Sabine Women.” Christian (and specifically Mormon) imagery mixes with B-movie ghouls and fast-food advertisements in \u201cJesus, Betty & the Shark,\u201d a surreal, crowded boat journey through a cartoonish sea filled with pop culture references. We could read it as a metaphor for the flood of media we consume daily, with these characters representing the flotsam and jetsam of our collective consumer consciousness. But that might add a little too much weight and sink the whole enterprise.<\/h4>\n

Across Ad-Libbed Art: Pop Deconstruction<\/i>, Stones keeps the tone lively and irreverent, using humor and absurdity to deliver his critique of mass media. Like the pop artists before him, Stones blurs the line between high art and low culture, inviting viewers to dig deeper into the images we take for granted every day. If you want to dive into this surreal, pop culture playground, catch Stones at Gallery East in Price for a closing reception and talk on November 1st. Can\u2019t make it? You can also see his work at the WSU Faculty Exhibit at the Shaw Gallery.<\/h4>\n
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Installation view with “Confrontation V” (2024), left and “Jesus, Betty & the Shark” (2009). Image courtesy of Gallery East.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Steve D. Stones\u2019 Ad-Libbed Art: Pop Deconstruction<\/em>, Gallery East<\/a>, Utah State University Eastern, Price, through Nov. 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may have seen Steve D. Stones’ work at the Ogden Farmers Market: the flaming Barneys and fish-headed Edwardians alongside video game icons like Pikachu and Mario hanging out in trippy, offbeat worlds, all tangled up with Halloween masks and comic book chaos. Stones\u2019 art is a mashup […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[2099,4616],"class_list":["post-87326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-gallery-east","tag-steve-d-stones"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-11-13 17:05:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Death-The-Three-Eyed-Martian-Drive-Up-Down-My-Neighborhood-In-A-Convertible-2024-1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87326"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87906,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87326\/revisions\/87906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}