What?
This December, Unit London presents Philip Colbert ‘Hunt Paintings’, at Saatchi Gallery, the London-based pop artist’s largest solo exhibition to date, featuring twenty-five works. Philip Colbert will exhibit new pieces, including the large-scale Hunt Paintings and a series of monumental sculptures. The exhibition, curated by Sasha Craddick, will run over three galleries, including a virtual reality experience, which will allow the audience to immerse themselves in Colbert’s World of Art.
Colbert’s practice encapsulates the spirit of Pop art through his humorous, colourful, and flamboyant creations. Described as ‘the Godson of Andy Warhol’, by Andre Leon Talley, Colbert continues the dialogue established by artists such as Richard Hamilton, James Rosenquist and Roy Lichtenstein. His multidisciplinary approach, with a focus on oil painting, updates the legacy of Pop art collage for the internet age, pushing the boundaries of artistic imagery.
Philip Colbert explains his new works ‘reflect the hyper saturation of our culture and our crazy, ferocious appetite for image consumption.’
The new vibrant canvases on show at Saatchi Gallery, including the monumental Hunt Triptych and Lion Hunt, maintain Colbert’s wildly exuberant style, while alluding to the compositions of Colbert’s artistic predecessors. Colbert’s ability to reference the epic narratives and heroic configurations of the Old Masters, from Reubens to Van Dyck, while presenting topical themes around digital media and contemporary consumer imagery, place him in a unique and influential position – from which he is simultaneously able to comment on the world around him, whilst maintaining a connection to the influence of those that have come before him.
The oil paintings challenge and toy with the viewer’s cultural vocabulary, superimposing commonplace banal objects onto painted faces and merging portraiture with popular culture in a Magritte-like fashion. Frequently narrated by the distinctive personality of Colbert’s comical lobster alter ego, he states, ‘I became an artist when I became a lobster’. A monumental lobster figurine will feature in the Saatchi exhibition, alongside a lobster army, bringing to life Colbert’s artistic personality.
When?
18 December 2018 – 13 January 2019
Where?
Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York’s HQ, King’s Rd, Chelsea, London SW3 4RY
How?
