Sickboy is Slick

Dec 31st 2008
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I’ve just had a friendly chat with Tom @ 100ArtWorks.com about their new release for 2009, a series of limited edition works by the infamous Sickboy and I just had to give them some props, even if it’s my birthday and I’m hungover, I mean, I’m forty today so I’m sure you can excuse my over-extended celebrations / commiserations / inebriations. I’ve saved a couple of bottles of champers for tonight just to make sure I put the flame out on 2008 with style, yes even I will push the boat out once in a while.

To the Sickboy review… as SocialArrow.com - an up and coming social bookmarking haunt taht have described my work as Art 2.0 - I think it only fair I introduce you to a few other rising stars in the scene, artists with media savvy and a penchant for self-publicity, in touch with the cultural currents, the ebb and flow of social awareness and the globally informative news and information saturated reality of the "Now". So let’s start with Sickboy…

Sickboy harks from Bristol, and since the early part of the decade you’d be hard pressed to find a street corner or rubbish bin in the Bristol area that hadn’t been beautified with this artist’s unique and somewhat primal style. His work reveals references from many quarters, an economized faux-psychedelic undercurrent combined with a cartoon perspective on Indian, Islamic and Japanese art melds with bright plasticised colours that you’d more likely expect to see in a toy shop window at Christmas.

SB, from the moment he picked up his first spray can has continued almost obsessively with his trademark motif, yellow and red dome like temples, The colours are in fact a visual play on corporate insignia and branding, in particular the colours of the megacorp that is McDonald’s. Yet the translation to urban art and street culture is quite astounding, his reclamation of this overtly commercial pallete has opened up a new vista of down-to-earth philosophical debate. Why buy Happy Meals when life is still such a misery, why not feed the soul rather than the stomach? SB’s work is, as far as I am concerned, urban regeneration in its most raw state.

Artist Proof Signed Print by Sickboy [Sold]

Sickboy signed print Artist Proof [Sold]

I personally believe the plasticity of his work references the corporate stranglehold on almost every part of our lives, a cheap and quick fix with highly negative and long-lasting consequences. We cannot rely on the wonders of mass production and Blue Chip focus group orientated advertising strategies. The problem with society is that we all agree as a collective that life must improve, it’s in a terrible state, and yet as individuals we find the task ahead daunting to say the least.

Original Signed Painting (on baking tray) by Sickboy - 19 x 24 cm.
Size of frame 41 x 32 cm. POA.

Sickboy, in his own inimitable yet highly effective way is doing just that, yes it’s only paint, it’s only colour, it’s only art, but art can be more than a decorative surface or messenger of dialectic medium for evolutionary change, it is change, however small the change may seem. The urban environment, in particular, is a depressing place for most of us to grow up in, or simply to grow. The majority of us do not live in an architectural dream of the future, we live here, in the midst of the decay and bureaucracy that enshrines our daily lives. So isn’t refreshing that a mere image, a simple design of colour and vibrancy, a moniker of hope can have such an enormous effect on our environment, or rather our perception of what could be rather than what is.

Sickboy Signed Light Box - Terea - 59 x 42 cm - £899.

The world could do with a lot more temples of love, we have banks and corporate institutions, all of which could be considered temples of greed and avarice, churches of megalomania and infinite self-aggrandising ambition. I’m not proposing a yellow and red domed edifice on every corner, but perhaps a tree, a flowerbed, and piece of clear blue sky, even a smile and nod would do.

Hurry down to 100ArtWorks.com now to grab what you can of Sickboy’s highly collectible urban street artworks before it’s too late, half the collection is already sold out or reserved! To see more of SB’s works visit his site at www.thesickboy.com