Abstract Surrealism

The Art of Mark Hopkins

Last Modified January 4, 2019 Leave a Comment

Mark Hopkins Surrealism

The landscapes of Mark Hopkins are as gorgeous as they are mind-bending. Hopkins’ surrealistic techniques include playful visual distortion, juxtaposed symbols, and abstract surrealism in combination with a mastery of the craft of painting.

The first painting in the gallery above shows the Buddha hovering in the air in an archetypal temple. The scene is calm. Juxtaposed with this peaceful imagery is the ‘fallout shelter’ symbol on the tiles of the floor. The repetition of this symbol in an otherwise serene environment startles the viewer. It invites us into the work with Hopkins to reflect and process. Other symbols (which you’ll need to discover for yourself) further add the complexity, ambiguity, and depth of this image.

Hopkins’ gorgeous contemporary surrealistic paintings are both profound and ineffable.

Mark Hopkins Artist Statement

My paintings consist of elements assembled into stories or into ‘mood-scapes’. I place the recognizable into the supernatural as a way to invite a viewer to co-create a narrative from their understanding of what’s in a given composition. There is content, for sure. But it is flexible content or perhaps it is ‘content under construction’. Why? Perhaps it’s because I want more out of a work of art than straight representation can offer. My work adjusts to mood, current events, individual personalities, and to itself. It is possible come away with a different interpretation with each viewing. Bang for buck.

There are a few things I hope to say through the oeuvre of my work; That the Earth is precious, time is precious, life is precious, that our mind is amazing, that history is way more profound than we think, and that there are mysteries lurking which can provide insights into who we are, why we are here, and how ‘it’ all works. Graham Hancock calls us a people who have forgotten our past. My paintings both acknowledge and challenge that: We are finding what we forgot – awakening and reconstructing our past – but we might want to hurry.

I hope my work pleases my audience. I hope they play with it, enjoy the quirks, the color, and find it satisfying.

hopkinesque.com

Virginia Stewart: Views From Within

Last Modified January 1, 2019 Leave a Comment

Artist Statement

When I sit down to do my art, my intention is to create magic; to create a visual wonderland that brings the gift of insight into the realm of mystical perception.

Like Zen, I feel I am a channel for the direct transmission of that phenomenon, the mysterious now.

So, when I look down at a series of squiggles and an image suddenly appears, I’m frequently surprised and say, “Oh, that’s what that is,” and draw it. And sometimes I ask, “Where did you come from?!” Other times I’m drawing and the lines start flowing into a form as if drawing itself, so I finish it.

This is the experience I want to share with my audience, the very discovery of the images unfolding before their eyes. And from that revelation, it is my aim for the viewer to come away with a new sense of awe about the magic of creation.

Artist Bio

Virginia Stewart was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 25, 1952. She is currently a resident of Phoenixville, PA.

Virginia has for a lifetime been on a healing and spiritual journey after being exposed to a range of human thought from Eastern philosophy to Western psychology. Her spiritual interest began at the age of thirteen when she heard a practitioner of yoga speak of the journey to enlightenment.

Virginia attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with an intensive curriculum of life drawing, still life, figure painting, cast drawing from plaster statues, art history, materials and techniques, anatomy, and other related courses.

She also attended the Studio School of Art and Design where she extended her artistic toolset with typography, mechanical drawing, color theory, illustration, and other methods and media.

Virginia’s curiosity for learning new things took her in many different directions, such as exploring physics and astronomy. And because of her love of learning about the city she lived in, she became a tour guide in Historic Philadelphia.

In 2009, she joined a unique learning center called Sphere College Project, where she gained the confidence to set out on her true path to becoming an important fine artist.

Exhibitions include: The Crescent Awards Show at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Print It Frame It Ship It, Steel City Gallery and Cafe, The Phoenix Village Art Center, “May Is Mental Health Month” (a traveling show sponsored by Fellowship Health Resources), Local Sphere Gallery and Crafts, Stages Arts Initiatives, and Franklin Commons Gallery “Flight” Show; Colors of Humanity, “Animals”; 3 Square Art Gallery, “100 Square Inches of Art”; Colors of Humanity, “Open”

Awards: SUNDAY SOUP AWARD, 2011 to frame her artwork; FIRST PRIZE, Fellowship Traveling Show, 2012 for Rose Empress; HONORABLE MENTION, The Phoenix Village Art Center Membership Show, 2013 for Flower Pod.

Commissions: Richard Liston, Radiant Swan, Emergence, Shell Pillow, Bumbees, and Tadpole Bowl; Scott Levy, Scott’s Life; Frank Kelso Wolfe, Portrait of Frank for a collection of poems, Love and Bagels.

Articles: “Vote for Your Favorites at Phoenix Village Art Center “, Phoenixville Patch, May 2011; “Virginia ‘Ginny’ Stewart”, Phoenixville Patch, May 2012.

Influences: Theodore Geisel, M.C. Escher, Edward Hopper, Jan Van Eyck, Albrect Durer, Vincent Van Gogh, Salvador Dali, Frans Hals, Henri Rousseau, Johannes Vermeer, Eugene Delacriox, John Singer Sargent.

Website

http://www.viewsfromwithin.com

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Ben Ridgway

Last Modified November 30, 2018 Leave a Comment

Ben Ridgway is currently an Assistant Professor at San Francisco State University in San Francisco, California, USA. He has 15 years of professional experience as both a 3D artist in the video game industry and as a Professor. While in the games industry he helped to create games for Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft console systems. Ben has been making experimental animations since 1992.
“My abstract animations investigate the metaphysical features of reality. They are designed to stimulate archetypal associations and invite the viewer to make personal connections to the visual and auditory experience without any reliance on narrative or spoken language.”

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Alan Brain

Last Modified February 8, 2018 Leave a Comment

Artist Statement: Now I am Surreal

I never expected to become a surrealist but here I am.
I started out about 25 years ago as a regular representational artist like most everyone else. My artistic journey has taken me through abstract expressionism to non objective painting. I gained a reputation as a geometric painter with a love to capture the feel of flying. I have made many paintings and never really cared about what box I was put in but when someone said: “you are a surrealist!” I was shocked.
No not me, not all those melting clocks and stuff, oh no. But yes! And I am loving it. I think Dali gave surrealism a bad name, but for me it works. I can express my feelings in an enigmatic way and it feels good to be a surrealist 🙂
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Andy Schmitz

Last Modified November 25, 2017 Leave a Comment

Andy Schmitz

Interview with Andy Schmitz

Surrealism Today: Recurring themes in your work seems to be skeletons and time. How do you think about them?

Andy Schmitz: In fact “skeletons” and “time” are some themes in my work. I think to become aware that everything will pass away and that all life is evanescence makes every little moment more valuable. This feeling should be transported in some artworks.

ST: Your work includes the use of pattern, repetition and refer to religious mandalas. Have these informed your work at all consciously?

AS: I am not a religious person. But of course I deeply believe that there is something beyond. Despite of that, some religious themes found there way into my artwork in my early drawings, such as: http://www.surreal-art.net/12 This was made in the time when I quit with the church … maybe it was my way to process this situation.

ST: What emotions do you feel when you work?

AS: When I draw a picture, in the beginning there is almost no emotion, it is more like a meditation which requires an “emptiness of the mind”, free from thoughts. Mostly I start in this mood and see what kind of drawing develops on the white paper.

When the theme comes into shape, the emotions and thoughts start to become part of the process and form the idea of the artwork to its finalisation. Quite hard to explain … I hope you can understand me.

ST: What emotions do you want your viewers to feel?

AS: The emotions of the viewers are almost impossible to predict. I hope that I can lead them into another world. A world of Imagination where they can just be curious like a child and leave everything behind which is rational.
Hopefully they reach this point just for one second while regarding a picture.

ST: How does architecture inform your work?

AS: In fact architecture itself has not found the way into my surreal pictures.

I plan to start a different episode of my work in future using different media.

Maybe I will do some architecture stuff, too. We will see.

ST: What concepts interest you?

AS: I like everything surreal and fantastic in art. Everything that emerges in the artists imagination and which can not be seen in real life. This for me is the most impressive kind of art.