We are delighted to welcome US-based painter Jeff Gillette to Stavanger for his first Scandinavian solo exhibition.
A Fine Art Masters graduate from California State University, Jeff Gillette has been making collages featuring accoutrements of Disney culture for over two decades. Recently, he was brought to the world’s attention through his participation in Banksy’s 2015 Bemusement Park spectacular, Dismaland, even being credited as an inspiration for the show in some quarters.
Despite the seriousness of his observations, Gillette sees ironic and amusing juxtapositions that occur when Disney, corporate logos, and pop icons from consumer culture show up as building blocks of shanty settlement construction.
His works reflect these ironies as well as add a playful dimension to art historical relationships: the addition of pop cultural references serving to sharpen the satirical stance of the message in his work, where everything is otherwise entropic and terrifying.