Philip Colbert Biography

Philip Colbert’s strong use of colour and abstraction of iconic imagery place his work within a dialogue with contemporary artists. Like his Pop Art predecessors, he employs aspects of mass culture and removes them from their context to create a provocative, satirical language of his own. Colbert conceives the 1950s American kitchen aesthetic as the foundation of ‘Pop’ and layers it with his own playful response to icons and symbols associated with fine art, such as meat imagery, prominent in the work of Soutine and Bacon. In doing so, he creates a dialogue with established ideas and works of the past. He ironically pastiches this imagery, playing on the notion that their repetition and overuse over the years have rendered them symbols of popular culture.