Antoine Toniolo’s work explores the mid 20th century emergence of America’s unique urban, consumerist aesthetic, typified by the genre of Pop Art and marked by a sense of profound optimism. Big Boy, the mascot for a chain of hamburger franchises that opened in the late 1940s, is a lasting symbol of that seminal era and the present, captured in caricature with his frozen smile and a flicker of enduring hokey and genuine innocence. Toniolo’s latest oil paintings explore that world and celebrate America’s irrepressible optimism.
Ochre Gallery
April 19 to May 13, 2012
His Bobness, 2012, oil on canvas, 121 x 61cm
Courtesy the artist and Ochre Gallery, Melbourne
