Lowbrow and Pop-Surrealism

Lowbrow art, or pop surrealism, is a visual art movement that arose in Los Angeles, California, area in the late 1970s. Its cultural roots are inspired by underground comics, punk music, tiki culture, and hot-rod cultures of the street. The terms lowbrow and pop surrealism are used interchangeably. Lowbrow is often humorous, sarcastic, or ironic.

Most lowbrow artworks are paintings, but there are also toys, digital art, sculpture, and collage.

Find contemporary pop-surrealist and lowbrow artists working today.

Kristin Kwan

July 18, 2022

Kristin Kwan is an artist who makes illustrative paintings and drawings, living with her family and crowd of pets in Lincoln, NE. Her artwork uses elements of fantasy and allegory to explore themes of life, death, and rebirth. “When I was growing up my family moved many times, and every new home held mysteries and […]

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Daniella Batsheva

July 11, 2022

Daniella Batsheva is an “Illustrator with a design habit” whose aesthetic straddles the line between underground and mainstream. Her art boasts the beautiful, detail-heavy, intricate line work of the Victorian era mixed with the dark goth imagery inspired by horror films. Softly stylized figures with deep color palettes. Whimsy with a creepy twist. Daniella shares, […]

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Dawn (2019) by Min Kyung Kwon

Min Kyung Kwon

January 2, 2022

Biography Min Kyung Kwon is an artist based in Adelaide, Australia creating art of otherworldly beings that are beyond physicality and can be only seen through our mind’s eyes. Kwon’s portraits are inspired by mythology, legends, folk storybooks, science through contradicting images of eeriness and cuteness with a glimpse of sensuality & innocence in their […]

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Marta Zubieta’s Alice in Lockdown

December 17, 2021

Alice in Lockdown is a self-directed illustration project by Marta Zubieta that explores the confusion and self-transformation journey we have gone through since the beginning of the lockdown in the UK. Bringing vibrant color to quite bleak subjects, Zubieta explores the millennial culture and its issues through pink-tinted glasses, neon colors, and dreamy characters. Zubieta […]

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Franc Kaiser’s Industrial Ecosystems

June 21, 2021

Franc Kaiser is a self-taught Swiss painter residing in Shanghai, China. Franc paints with acrylics on cardboard substrates. Each painting starts with an idea and sketch, and the composition is then penciled on a cardboard. The paintings progress in several stages, from a build-up of basic values with acrylic paint to detailed layers, which can […]

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