About the style
The pictures and icons across Gambot use a pop-art look inspired by Andy Warhol (1928–1987). They are our own drawings, made from flat colour shapes. None of them is his work.
Not affiliated with any artist's estate or museum.
What the look borrows
Tate describes Warhol's work as having a "flat, graphic quality" similar to that found in media and advertising. We borrow that: flat colour, bold outlines and a dot texture.
Repetition is the second idea. Tate notes that Marilyn Diptych uses a grid of 25 heads on each canvas, that Skulls repeats one image six times, and that his soup cans appear in grids. Our four honoring pieces repeat one shape in a grid in the same spirit.
The third idea is variation. Tate says printmaking let him repeat a basic image and make "endless variations" by changing the colours. Each of our pieces keeps the same shapes and changes the colours.
Why the store has wall-label notes
In a museum, a didactic is wall text that gives background to an exhibition or an artwork. The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art puts it this way: wall didactics provide "additional information about a particular exhibition or artwork."
It names two kinds. An introductory panel at the entrance sums up a show's themes. An extended label beside a work adds detail. The same page says didactics inform; they are not meant to tell the viewer what to think.
We chose that style on purpose for the store, so that the look explains itself. A museum guide from Museums & Galleries NSW suggests about 70 to 80 words for a label beside a work, 100 to 200 words for an introductory panel, plain words without jargon, and labels that do not dominate the objects. Our notes aim for the same.
Looking in at itself
Didactic means made to teach. For Jeffrey, the idea that matters most here is a didactic that looks in at itself: the work shows how it was made.
That is his view, in his words, and not something we took from a source.
Where the word didactic comes from
Sources: 5
What we do not do
We do not copy, trace or imitate any particular Warhol artwork, and we do not use portraits of real people. The shapes are circles, squares and triangles of our own.
This gallery also honours the Carpatho-Rusyn people, from whom Warhol's parents came. Jeffrey's family is Carpatho-Rusyn as well. The note on the Art page explains, and says it does not speak for the community.
Sources we read
We opened each of these pages while writing this one. If a page changes or moves, tell us and we will fix this page.
- Talking shop: didactics, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. What a museum didactic is; intro panels and extended labels; didactics inform and leave room for the viewer's own view.
- Exhibition labelling, Museums & Galleries NSW. Label length (70 to 80 words; 100 to 200 for introductory panels), plain language, labels that do not dominate the objects.
- What was Andy Warhol thinking?, Tate. The flat, graphic quality; grids and repetition (Marilyn Diptych, Skulls, soup cans); many versions of one image.
- How to print like Warhol, Tate. Printmaking let him repeat a basic image and make endless variations with different colours; dates 1928–1987.
- Didactic, Merriam-Webster. Didactic means designed or intended to teach.