Fallon Williams: Monday entry (for 2/15/10): Artist of interest: Ben Frost

Ben Frost is an Australian visual artist who was born in Brisbane in 1975. He creates collages that depict the appropriated images of pop culture cartoon characters, such as Hello Kitty, Spongebob Squarepants, Mickey Mouse amongst others, as well as iconic images from advertisement, entertainment and politics. In an interview with Juxtapoz magazine, Frost explained the message behind his work:

It's like that feeling when you first find out that Santa Clause is really your dad dressed up in a costume, or when you see dove droppings drip out of the magician's sleeve as he performs at your 10th birthday party.

Cartoon characters are all happy and fun at first—promising you happy rainbows and pixie dust, but then when you switch off the television, life suddenly isn't like that anymore.

In fact the only way children can feed their rainbow and pixie dust addiction is to get their parents to purchase any number of items from the toy catalogue that the character represents.

New characters are specifically created based on their projected profit margins from merchandising sales, and Happy Meal tie-ins. Their cute happy faces are the public face of the corporations they represent. It is this often-misplaced motivation that casts a dark shadow across the entire idea of children's 'entertainment'.

So I try and imagine what these characters might be doing when they are not working, when they aren't performing for us on our screens. Ronald McDonald and the Hamburglar get together and smoke crack, Hello Kitty has a porn addiction, Goofy and Pluto like rough sex with each other, but they always manage to clean up and get it together when they have to come back to perform for the kiddies.

When asked about his usage of appropriated pop culture images and logos, he explained:

A lot of people - and especially a lot of artists, are so incredibly afraid of appropriation as a means of creative representation. There is this scenario in their heads that the 'Coca-Cola' police are going to break down their studio door, dressed from head to toe in red and white leather, tie their hands behind their backs with dynamic ribbon devices and then knee-cap them in the parking lot—all because they painted a Coca-Cola logo on one of their canvases!

Ben Frost's official website.

Frost's work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney.

Interview with Juxtapoz magazine.
The following images were taken from Ben Frost's official website.