Badlands, 2021, Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 25 inches (courtesy of the artist)
Thomas Gieseke’s detailed, surreal paintings will be featured in the exhibition The Monsters’ Merry-Go-Round at the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art in St. Joseph, Missouri, beginning Nov. 15. After spending four decades as a successful illustrator, the Johnson County-based artist pivoted to focus on gallery work beginning in 2011. His work combines a love of nature with pop culture, politics and humor through the lens of 1960s anti-establishment artistic influences from his youth.
Gieseke spent his youth in Overland Park when the suburb was on the very edge of the metro. He explored the nearby undeveloped woods and creeks. Bugs, plants and other wildlife quickly became a favorite subject for the budding artist. He spent three years in the army during the Vietnam War, then briefly studied commercial art before embarking on a career as an illustrator. His work on album covers, greeting cards, stationery products and advertising drew on his interest in nature, love of comic books, and the influence of outsider art movements.
The rise of the hot rod scene and California counterculture around artists and designers like Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, Ed Newton and Robert Williams, who coined the terms “lowbrow art” and “pop surrealism,” was hugely influential on Gieseke’s career. Pop culture references and inspiration from cartoons, comics and car design are combined with dreams and exploration of the unconscious. Magazines like Williams’ Juxtapoz helped to popularize the work of these humorous and
subversive artists.
Many of Gieseke’s paintings begin in a state of “twilight dreaming.” When an image appears to him while just on the edge of sleep, he will quickly jot the idea down to be turned into a painting later. His experience as an illustrator means that his work prioritizes the drawing process and focuses on details before the painting process begins. In his paintings, creatures both whimsical and terrifying seem to simultaneously live in their own imaginary worlds and reflect the harsher truths of modern interactions between humanity and nature. Familiar pop culture and historical figures twist and move through strange landscapes and mundane locations like diners and suburban backyards as if caught in the middle of their adventures.
The Monsters’ Merry-Go-Round will be on exhibit from Nov. 15 to Feb. 22, 2026. More information about this exhibition and related programming can be found at albrecht-kemper.org.
Financial assistance provided by the St. Joseph, Missouri Visitors Bureau and the Missouri Arts Council.
