One may not know what name the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) would give to Ben Frost’s obsession with pharmaceutical boxes. Indeed, there is surely a medication proscribed for something like this.

Frost’s view is a subversive and brightly provocative look of going off-brand if you will. “Super Mario flies high through a k-hole, Fred Flintstone and Grogu pass joints, and it’s revealed what kind of ‘power pills’ Pac-Man is really gobbling,” says the press release from the Melbourne-based street artist/studio artist.

“Friends in High Places is both a satirical critique of consumer culture and a begrudging celebration of it,” says Frost. “Blurring the lines between the visceral and addictive experience of drug use with the seductive products of consumerism, the exhibition explores our love/hate relationship with these products and the characters who sell them to us.”

Opening at LA’s Corey Helford Gallery next week, the new exhibition closely follows another pop-inspired graphic artist, D*Face, whose skewering of commercial culture is perhaps more subconscious, tinged with sadness. That would require a slightly different diagnosis and prescription.

Ben Frost. Friends in High Places, opening at Los Angeles’ Corey Helford Gallery (CHG) on Saturday, September 17^th. Los Angeles, CA.

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