“SHE’S a classy, flashy lassy”, begins the number “Rocka Rolla” by English heavy metal band Judas Priest, which gives its name to Aarwun Gallery’s new retrospective of works by pop artist, Johnny Romeo.

The same “classy, flashy” compliment might well be paid to the works on show.

Romeo, who has burst onto the world stage, and now has a considerable following in the US and Europe, is a Sydney-born graduate of the College of Fine Arts. He combines dramatic colour with culture jamming, sometimes called “guerrilla communication”, a tactic used to disrupt or subvert media culture and its mainstream cultural institutions.

Of it, Romeo said: “Cultural jamming revolves around memories in order to jam contemporary issues… in all of my works I’m commenting on something current, I use music as a tool and I do deal with some contemporary history and social issues.”

Andy Warhol certainly used the images of Mao and Marilyn Monroe to reflect media imagery, but his work, Romeo believes, sits on the political fence and is quite different from contemporary culture jamming.

In the work, “Radio Gaga”, Queen lead-singer Freddie Mercury is inserted into John Paul Gaultier’s “Le Male” sailor ad, a visual gag, but Romeo also references Queen’s 1984 words — ”All we hear is radio ga ga Radio blah blah” — commenting on the rise of the music video and MTV, where music is swamped by style and image.

Romeo’s main target is the music industry and as a devoted fan of rock ‘n’ roll, he laments its demise as it’s been overwhelmed by hip-hop culture.

That is clearly seen in his painting “Day Fall Rock”, where he puts together two Led Zeppelin symbols, using the Icarus logo, which itself was based on an 1869 sketch by British artist William Rimmer. Now the logo becomes a music-lover clinging to Led Zeppelin’s “Mothership”. The words “Ramble On”, are a play on Led Zeppelin’s number “Sample On”, which in turn refers to the hip-hip penchant for “sampling” music by other artists.

There’s another level to his work which could challenge viewers, although Romeo asserts that his work can be understood in layers, so the viewer doesn’t need a degree in rock music to understand it.

Visitors to the Aarwun gallery will have fun deconstructing his work “California Dreaming”, identifying James Dean dressed up as gangster rap provocateur Tupac Shakur, and spotting the parallels between their violent deaths in cars in the words “Low Rider$”. Both died in California, so the artist points in arrows to The Mamas & The Papas song and a lyric from Tupac and Dr Dre’s hip hop anthem, “California Love”.

“I like to play on words, words crossed out, compound rhyming,” he said.

“I’m always looking for a double meanings to subvert the image completely from the initial impression that you get.”

“Rocka Rolla” is at Aarwun Gallery, Gold Creek, seven days a week until October 5.

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