The wonderful Terra Incognita drew my attention to Russian photo artist Ann Mei.
Her ethereal worlds often involve strange apparatuses of questionable purpose. Tiny animals, string…perhaps not meant to tell a cohesive story.
Only the subject knows the truth behind the design.
Then there are the surreal scenes that beautifully defy form and function.
And one that reminds me of my mischievous childhood imagination:
See more in her deviant art gallery.
Emma Hack’s body painting works are absolutely unparalleled.
I’m completely transfixed by the way she blends her subject with the background, morphing them into a single entity that seems to shift between two and three dimensions in the observer’s perceptual field.
Such an incredible eye for artistic reproduction…
Can you believe it’s only paint?
See more, and prepare to be amazed.
Yu Sugawara is a wonderful modern surrealist painter who plays with the fusion of form and meaning.
The titles are often single words that guide the mind into a context and are quite poignant in light of the image.
“Landlord:”
“Shy:”
“Writing:”
See more of his intriguing works in the galleries.
I would hardly know how to give proper samples of Chris Berens’ work that convey the scope of his talent, so I’ll focus on his most recent exhibit: Go West.
One of his darker series, Go West leaves us to wander on the gentle dividing line between waking life and sleep.
These watery, obscure dream worlds are rife with historical, cultural and artistic references…but they fade into whispers as you get drawn into the images themselves.
And I must include this little lady. I feel like I’ve been personally represented here, Pisces symbolism and all!
Pay a visit to the artist website.
Or see an absolutely stellar presentation of Go West on Erratic Phenomena.
I’ve been a fan of Dave Cooper’s grotesque, shiny, highly unsettling fleshy images for many years.
His uniquely manic style never fails to (literally) stretch and pervert the dimensions and capabilities of human form.
Recently, Cooper did a bouncy, fantastically hideous animated video for Danko Jones. I love it!
He has also published a number of books. Among them:
Ripple: A Predilection for Tina
Overbite: Drawings and Paintings of Mostly Pillowy Girls
Underbelly: Additional Observations of Beauty/Ugliness of Mostly Pillowy Girls
The new website is under construction, but there are links to other sites…pay it a visit and enjoy the madness!
Lithuanian surrealist painter Vladimir Golub has a penchant for painting ladies with cumbersome objects atop their heads.
I love the nonchalance of the women supporting these cranial worlds…
He also creates structures that border on abstract…that draw in the eye and challenge the brain to make sense of the image.
And of course, the occasional Bosch-style giant fish transportation system:
I had quite a nice time browsing his site.
Check your notions of time, space and reality at the door, and give yourself over to the world of Sergei Aparin.
His paintings are magical, dark, chaotic, beautiful surrealism at its best.
I could study these endlessly and still find new stories…
Go get lost in the galleries.
I can find very little information on Romanian surrealist painter Mihai Criste.
Many modern surrealists produce very complex work with multiple areas of focus in a each painting. Although I love pieces that give my eyes and mind a workout, it’s actually rather refreshing to see surrealism concentrate on a central subject.
Clean, crisp, lovely.
His blog seems to contain the best collection of images.
It took a while for a news story to pop up that rivals my escaped giant feces story in its absurdity. But the weekend brought us…
It makes me smile to think of ships carrying such ludicrous cargo. I like to believe the entire ship was populated with these giants. Go ahead and indulge in some imaginative hypothetical accounts of this whole story went down.
Pooch Island is the website of artist Michael Pucciarelli. It’s a delightful, dizzying sideshow infused with cultural symbolism.
This may be my favorite. NEMO’S ETHNOBOTANICAL EXPERIMENT NO. 5:
Raised on a diet of Ray Harryhausen films, H. P. Lovecraft novels, comics, Walt Disney World and other Florida tourist traps, Pooch paints images that seem to exist in a bizarre afterlife. His art is a visual cocktail of these influences—with a shot of lowbrow culture—shaken and stirred, then served up in a souvenir tiki skull on the Day of the Dead. -From artist bio on site
SheWalksSoftly 