PHIBS
Australia 1974

Blue heart (on orange). 2004
stencil
Signed lower left within image in black fibre-tipped pen, 'TimdeHaan'. Not dated. Not titled.
printed image 33.5 (h) x 50.9 (w) cm
Gordon Darling Australia Pacific Print Fund 2007
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
NGA 2007.68.1
© Tim de Haan

In modern consumer society we are constantly bombarded by signs, logos and advertisements with countless brand identities in the city streets. Because of this, the Australian artist and graphic designer Phibs believes that street artists should establish their own creative identities, or personal brand. His own artistic identity employs strong graphic lines combined with an influence of the art and mythology of other cultures, especially Aztec and Mayan, prominent in much of his work. This piece is a strong example of this influence. Considering that Phibs is a talented tattoo-artist the black face to the right of the work shares visual parallels with traditional Maori designs.

Phibs’ artistic practice fuses old school graffiti tagging with an intricate cut-back technique to demonstrate the subversive and illegal history of street art. Through this he is able to combine fine-art-school techniques with street-based authorship. Blue heart [on orange] depicts a patterned blue heart with bones crossed through it adjacent to a highly stylised man composed of curving geometric lines. The central motif of a spray can suggests it is a brand, or logo. This logo shares the same visual simplicity and strength of imagery used in Socialist Realism art, such as Communist Russia’s Hammer and Sickle, through the bold use of shape and simplicity.

Pip Lean