Apollo Staar is a multi-disciplinary artist who grew up in Southern California and was greatly influenced by UK and American pop culture since an early age. His work covers 3 main creative disciplines:
-1. Painting (graphic photo-based as well as hand drawn/painted works).
-2. Assemblage work using various found, discarded, and sourced items.
-3. Drawing/sketching in pen & ink.
Staar attended Art Center College of Design on a Ford scholarship for transportation design, then went into cinema studies and moved to San Francisco to attend film school at SF State University, graduating with a degree in film directing and film theory.
The themes of his visual art center mainly on observing the twisted and often subversive side of American culture thru the eyes of a distant visitor, as he sees himself. His work is influenced by colourful advertisements in pop culture as well as a fascination with the dark side of celebrity. Staar developed a passion for graphic design and typography at a young age and was much more interested in the often quirky and zany classified ads in the back of 60s and 70s comic books and magazines rather than the actual content. This developed into a love for mid-century-modern signage and typography reflected in much of his painted work. He brings together old-time images, vintage magazine ads, and retro clip art of past antiquated American customs and combines them with words, texts, and slogans to create new meaning to otherwise simplistic images of traditional pop culture. Staar is also influenced by design aesthetics from the 1920s Bauhaus School of Design, George Maciunas and the Fluxus movement, and 1960s American and European graphic design and advertisements. He brings those design elements into his work, which is deeply rooted in pop culture as a form of high art.
Assemblage art is another artistic passion for Staar. His darkly themed monochromatic wall pieces are meticulously created by spending much time perusing charity shops and wholesale surplus marts to find the perfect pieces. From old Hot Wheels toy cars to plastic water pistols to empty liquor bottles, anything is fair game to get his message across.
