Pop-realism artist and cultural satirist Philip Colbert opened his one man show of eight large canvasses at the Saatchi Gallery this week. Personally Colbert is enthusiastic and charming, he is a creative polymath, his pop art has comedic and intellectual levels of social and political commentary; his current medium is painting but his work embraces fashion as wearable art, cars and homes, his goal is to express a holistic pop universe.
Colbert’s muses are the turn of the century artists Sonia and Robert Delauney, key figures in originating the Parisian movement of abstract and expressive art, Sergei Diagelev, founder and impresario of The Ballets Russes and the Existentialism art movement. Colbert selects themes for his paintings, space, construction, London, the kitchen and tourism; choosing the Lobster character as his alter ego he observes the ironies and travesties of C21st lifestyles, he sees the crustaceon as the protagonist of surrealism. The Lobster is dressed in an androgynous all-in-one suit printed with fried eggs. For Colbert the egg is packed with symbolism, the beginning of life, the insult of throwing eggs and the comedy of wearing eggs, he says “the meeting of the yellow and white is the purest symbol of abstraction
The obscenely oversized cruise ship crashing into the ancient city of Venice is an obvious condemnation of the pollution that popularity propagates, computer warnings of “error” “error” and OMG emojis manifest all around the lost Lobster gondolier. Colbert’s paintings are more powerful than words, his current technical skill of painting a collage and balancing between the cartoon and the figurative is impressive. Charles Saatchi, businessman and art connoisseur, was so excited by these painting he personally helped Colbert hang the exhibition.