There is a surprising amount of lovely, darkly surreal work on deviantart.com. Empatia has a nice little gallery of digital and hand drawn work.
See more here.
Tag: surrealism
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Graphic artist Catrin Arno has a beautiful portfolio of mixed media surreal collage work.
See more here.
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I love this Playhouse installation by Dietrich Wegner. Somewhere between atomic aftermath and heaven…
When an image stands in limbo, between associations, it occupies a flexible place in our mind. Wegner creates images that are safe and unsettling, abject and beautiful…Often Wegner chooses materials that contradict an aspect of an image while striving towards a realistic depiction of the image.
A mushroom cloud is fluffy like synthetic cotton, yet a Poly-fil mushroom cloud becomes fun and cozy…The ephemeral beauty of a mushroom cloud is frightening, how it floats for a minute, delicate and blooming, yet remains chaotic and utterly destructive. We experience a contradiction between what our eyes enjoy and what our mind knows.
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Please forgive me, but I can’t remember which of the wonderful blogs I follow led me to Xiau-Fong Wee.
Curious forms of flesh and machine…
Reverse mermaid…not quite as sexy as the deep sea sirens we’re accustomed to.
See more on the artist site.
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The lovely Lines and Colors recently made a second post about Olga Dugina and Andrej Dugin.
They definitely hail from the school of Hieronymous Bosch, using surreal mashups of religious figures and iconography to construct visual narratives.
Image collection, courtesy of Lines and Colors:
Official site
More work (large images)
…also here and here -
Mindazonaltal’s Flickr photostream is filled with gorgeous surreal vignettes.
As tempting as it is to fill this post with my own commentary, I think everyone should get a chance to form their own impressions and draw their own conclusions from work like this.
See more here
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Kirsty Mitchell has a gift for creating elaborate photographs without the use of common digital manipulations. Here are a few from her Wonderland series.
How could I NOT love these book laden images?
Her vibrant landscapes are all natural locations she carefully scouts, and clothing/props are meticulously created (often hand dyed) to match. Clearly, intense preparation goes into every shot. The result: bursts of surreal, fairy tale scenery to complement the beauty of nature that surrounds.
The inspiration behind this series is complex and multifaceted, but it is partially a tribute to her mother who passed away a few years ago. I only wish I could memorialize my mother with such images.
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These surrealist photo manipulations are the work of 20 year old Xetobyte.
His images bend the laws of time and space, manipulating reality into dark, somber (and at times subversive) dreamscapes.
We find many implicit and explicit references to the passage of time, introversion, isolation, enlightenment, illumination, music, ascension, breaking boundaries and shifted perception.
He manages to capture the essence of complex emotions in a single, frozen image.
See more here.
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I featured an amazing Lori Nix photograph in my last Desktop Goodies post, but she really deserves her own entry here.
Her images are rich and lush, filled with life and decay…often post-apocalyptic.
From the artist bio:
I am often asked questions about the inspiration for my work as well as my working process. As a ‘non-traditional’ photographer (I construct my subject matter rather than go find it) people find it hard to grasp what exactly it is that I do. And the fact that it is all done in front of the camera, with no digital manipulation, adds its own set of challenges. Building materials, lighting, issues of scale and space all become significant when you are recreating the world on a table top.
I cannot believe that most of her photos are hand crafted scenes and dioramas.
You can read a lengthy interview about her materials and process here, and see more incredible work on her website.
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Over the weekend I got to see a rare Hans Richter film: Dreams That Money Can Buy.
The story involves a man who realizes he can see into the minds of others, and opens a business selling custom made dreams to troubled clients. Each customer encounter is followed by a surreal dream sequence.
My absolute favorite was The Girl With the Prefabricated Heart. I couldn’t find the entire clip without a remade score, but you can get an idea from this. If you enjoy strange dolls, and clever satire of consumerism and manufactured beauty, this is NOT to be missed:
Here is an abridged version with the original soundtrack. Click to hear its scratchy, vintage glory:
SheWalksSoftly 