I’ve been a fan of Nathan Ota for quite sometime, but only recently did I finally see some of his work in person at La Luz de Jesus Gallery.

Ota creates wonderful creatures and environments; amalgams of nature, technology and pop culture.

His landscapes have a great sense of light (at the gallery, the above painting seemed to actually glow).

Check out the gallery for some of the most enjoyable birds and trees in the world of pop surrealism.

At first glance, Bhakti Baxter’s images are intriguing, and I was quite impressed to see that they are created with India ink on mylar.

During my formative years I tried to paint on every surface known to man, including mylar…and it was no easy task. I can’t imagine how he gets the ink and mylar canvas to cooperate so beautifully!

You can see a small gallery here and a larger one, with mixed media, here.

After posting about the incredible Laurie Lipton, I’d like to pay tribute to another artist in the same Corpro Nason show.

Jimmy Pickering’s work makes me smile. Big, giddy, goofy grins.

I want to hug his sweet little monsters and depictions of “evil.”

From his website bio:

i guess if my style had a recipe it would read “a dash of pirates of the caribbean, a smidgen of the haunted mansion, a pinch of its a small world, combined with equal parts funny face drink mix, freakies cereal and crazy foam. then add even amounts of dr. seuss, edward gorey, puff-n-stuff, star wars and everyone of those television stop motion animated x-mas specials and bake.”

I think that sums it up nicely.

View the new Corpro Nason Halloween exhibit.
And check out the galleries on his regular site.
He also has a collection of children’s books.

The only reason I’ve yet to post about Laurie Lipton is that I’m too in love with her work to choose examples. But now I have a way to introduce her: the Day of the Dead show at Corpro Nason (which I’m drooling over and must get to).

Inspired by traditional religious Flemish art, Lipton devised a method of creating depth and form through thousands of tiny cross-hatched lines. Trust me, you’ve never seen pencil drawings like this; obsessive in detail, and absolutely luminous. They take my breath away.

I can’t wait to see these in full size. View the exhibit online.

The illusions Oliver Vernon creates in our perceptual field are nothing short of amazing. He is an architect of spacial planes and depth.

Oliver Vernon’s works open up new fields of visual play, spontaneity, and wonder in a time of information density and visual overload. The macro and micro views resolve into unified wholes, creating imaginative and reflective spaces that capture the energy, complexity, and anxiety of our globally interconnected worlds, both organic and humanly constructed. –Source

Let him play with your mind a bit.

I’ve admired Michael Hussar’s work for years.

Hussar describes his work as “a voyeuristic snapshot of perceived humanity, complete with freaks and fakery; a gothic wonderland illuminating the gray area between truths and lies.” Hussar’s attachment to his paintings runs deep; each piece is a journal of sorts, allowing him to come face to face with his demons and exorcising them with each new stroke of the brush. –Beinart International Surreal Art Collective

Check out his site for an intriguing circus of nightmares.

Karl Persson gives life force to nightmares. I’ve chosen work-safe images, but the gallery on his site contains a collection of twisted, tortured scenes that tap into the deep recesses of the human psyche.

Shock value alone does nothing for me, but Persson manages to capture something primal; sadness, desperation and an imaginative horror that seems to be pulled directly from a bad dream.

If you only love happy, pretty things…beware.