Los Angeles–based painter Jasimen Phillips is a featured artist in the city of Santa Clarita’s “Pop Culture” exhibition, currently on view at the Newhall Community Center through March 25, 2026.

Phillips’ featured painting, American Lovebirds (2025), offers a sharp contemporary examination of American identity shaped by technology, consumer culture, and modern systems of living.

Referencing Grant Wood’s iconic American Gothic, American Lovebirds presents a stylized couple posed in a familiar yet distinctly modern composition. The female figure appears as a robot, dressed in a Lululemon-inspired athleisure outfit, while the male figure holds an iPhone, replacing symbols of agrarian labor with markers of automation, digital dependence, and branded lifestyle. Rather than depicting intimacy, the figures function as representations of how humans increasingly relate to technology, and to themselves, through devices, optimization, and consumption.

Rendered in bold color fields and intentionally simplified forms, the painting blends pop imagery, folk aesthetics, and contemporary portraiture. Phillips uses this visual language to question authenticity, agency, and autonomy in an era defined by constant connectivity and corporate influence.

“Pop culture doesn’t just reflect our values, it programs our behavior,” said Phillips. “American Lovebirds looks at how technology reshapes identity and replaces older ideas of labor, purpose, and selfhood with systems built around efficiency and consumption.”

Phillips is known for her paintings that merge fine art, fashion, and social commentary, using portraiture to interrogate power, visibility, and aspiration. Her work invites viewers to reflect on how cultural narratives are constructed—and how deeply embedded they are in everyday technological life.

The “Pop Culture” exhibition celebrates the imagery, symbols, and stories that shape shared cultural experience, drawing inspiration from film, advertising, fashion, and media. Phillips’ contribution stands out for its layered engagement with American art history while offering a pointed critique of contemporary technological culture.

The exhibition is presented by the city of Santa Clarita and is free and open to the public at the Newhall Community Center, located at 22421 Market St., Newhall, CA 91321.

For more information about “Pop Culture” and upcoming arts programming, visit SantaClaritaArts.com.

Jasimen Phillips work “American Lovebirds” on display in the “Pop Culture” exhibit now showing at the Newhall Community Center. Photo City of Santa Clarita.