In Super Mario World: Screw Sonic (SNES), Arlo Sinclair reimagines the beloved Nintendo classic as a tongue-in-cheek battle of icons, where nostalgia, rivalry, and subculture collide. Painted with the artist’s trademark hyperrealism, the grey SNES cartridge becomes a stage for playful provocation: Mario and Yoshi charge forward beneath the slogan “WHO NEEDS SPEED? WHEN YOU’VE GOT ’SHROOMS!” while a taped-on label mocks Sega’s rival mascot with the blunt retort, “SCREW SONIC.”

Sinclair mines the golden age of the 16-bit console wars, when Nintendo and Sega competed fiercely for dominance, transforming what was once a marketing rivalry into a commentary on how brands, characters, and even substances enter cultural mythology. The reference to mushrooms, central to Mario’s gameplay, is recast as a double entendre—pointing at both in-game power-ups and real-world psychedelic culture. With this layered joke, Sinclair collapses the innocence of childhood gaming with adult reinterpretations, exposing the elasticity of cultural memory.

Every scuff, sticker, and improvised tape detail is rendered with meticulous precision, underscoring Sinclair’s fascination with the materiality of obsolete formats. By isolating the cartridge on a stark white ground, the artist frames it as both relic and artifact, inviting viewers to regard a mass-produced plastic object with the reverence of a cultural fossil.

As with the other works in his 2025 cycle, Super Mario World: Screw Sonic (SNES) exemplifies Sinclair’s ability to fuse humor and critique. Drawing from the Pop Art lineage of appropriation and satire, he repositions the cartridge not just as a nostalgic object but as a canvas for cultural commentary—where play, rivalry, and altered perception converge.