DETROIT – John Hicks is back in college this month.

An art teacher at De La Salle Collegiate since 2015, Hicks’ pop art is currently on display at his alma mater, the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit. 
  
The show, called Vaguely Familiar, features 17 paintings based on iconic American logos and imagery, layered, abstracted, and cut together to the point they are barely recognizable. Logos from Goodyear, Halliburton, Netflix, Chevron, Amazon, Ford, Mobil, and McDonald’s are just a few of the iconic American companies highlighted in Hicks’ work.

“It’s a commentary on the bombardment of advertising imagery and things just mashed together where we stop paying attention to what it is we’re seeing because we’re seeing so much,” Hicks said. “It’s basically pop art distractions of common, every day things. The show is called Vaguely Familiar, where you recognize these things immediately, but not in that context.”

Hicks is a two-time graduate of the CCS, earning his bachelor’s degree in 2004 and master’s four years later. Since his CCS days, Hicks has taught at four different schools – including De La Salle – and has continued painting, sculpting, and building. Hicks’ other interests include cooking, traveling, and spending time with his family.

Hicks says he drew some of his inspiration from old propaganda styles. 

“Everywhere we go, everywhere look, every tab we open, every app we use, we are inundated with advertisements,” he said. “TV commercials grab us with their humor, but we can’t remember what company they were for. LED billboards change before we can read them. Images replace words.”

The paintings are all done on plywood purchased from a hardware store. In some places the wood is left bare, showing both the thickness of the paint, as well as the material it was painted on. The materials are familiar from an everyday application, from office furniture to freeway signs to new home construction. Hicks uses primary colors, plus black, white and gray to suggest the deconstruction, and reconstruction that has happened with the source images. 

There are places where a hand-painted approach juxtaposes cleaner lines, and stenciled and spray painted shapes takes on the look of both traditional, and mass produced sign-making techniques.

“Everything in the pieces, from the color, shapes, and materials, leaves you with the feeling that the works are vaguely familiar,” Hicks explained.

Vaguely Familiar is showing at CCS Alumni & Faculty Hall, and his free to the public.