Dexter Wynn · No. 93

Bubblegum Blue

Bubblegum Blue is Pop at its most joyful and its most quietly knowing. A young woman blows a perfect sphere of pink gum against a field of electric blue, her features pared down to crisp graphic shapes and a soft blush of halftone dots. Dexter Wynn takes a single frivolous, throwaway gesture — the kind of image once found on a sweet wrapper or a teen-magazine cover — and grants it the scale, the centrality and the lacquered finish of a formal portrait. That is the deadpan wit at the heart of the genre: the elevation of consumer ephemera to the status of art, delivered without a wink. The flat, saturated colour and confident black outline keep the picture instantly legible from clear across a room, while the very shamelessness of the subject keeps it from sliding into mere decoration. There is real formal control beneath the fun — the bubble's circle echoed in the curve of the cheek, the cool blue ground throwing the warm skin forward. It is bubblegum in every sense: sweet, weightless, instantly pleasurable and engineered to delight. Rendered with just enough irony to earn its place, it is pure Pop optimism, blown to bursting point.

An original oil painting on canvas by Dexter Wynn, painted to order — never a reproduction. Pop-art icons in flat primary colour, Ben-Day dots and bold black outlines — everyday objects and bright portraits with a comic-book punch.

Artist

Dexter Wynn

Medium

Oil on canvas

Finish

Unframed, ready to hang or frame

Made

To order, by hand