Contemporary Surrealistic Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (support base). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and airbrushes, can be used. Painting is a mode of creative expression, and the forms are numerous.

-via Wikipedia

Painting is one of the most versatile mediums in visual art. It is also a highly personal medium. Painting styles are as varied and idiosyncratic as the artists themselves.

And so it is with surrealistic painting.

Contemporary surrealistic painting ranges from the nearly photographic dreamscapes of Jacek Yerka and Mark Ryden, to the abstract surrealism of Mohammad Zaza, from scribbles on linen to highly detailed horror artists like HR Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński, to visionary artists like Alex Grey and Rudolf Hausner attempting to visualize the spiritual world or religious experience.

Jeff Bartels’ Alternative Artifacts: Strange Antiques in a Post Truth World

Dated July 17, 2018 Leave a Comment

Alternative Artifacts is artist Jeff Bartels’ latest series of hyperreal oil paintings which feature strange antiques that never existed. The bizarre objects stretch and bend the truth about our past in order to bring a focus on the deceptions going on in our world today.

The old and worn out objects have a surreal quality that are meticulously painted which causes the viewer to question the authenticity of what they are seeing. The antiques appear to be absurd but they are presented with such precise detail that their stories can almost be believed.

This blurring of lines between what is real and what is not reflects our present day where governments gaslight their own people, propaganda outlets pose as news organizations and social media networks spread conspiracy theories. These are the objects that never happened from a past that only exists in the Post Truth era.

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Nicolas Gadbois Surreal Landscapes

Dated March 13, 2018 Leave a Comment

Worlds Largest Truckstop - by Nicolas Gadbois

Artist Statement: Real Life Surrealism

My surreal paintings are taken from scenes in everyday life that have a quality that is strange or otherworldly. For a number of first wave surrealist painters emptiness was a significant feature in the art. De Chirico and Dali both drew heavily from scenes expressing existential void. My work focuses on the altered landscape and cultural emptiness. Photographs I take are the basis for the paintings. I choose dead malls, places left behind, and blank billboards for my subjects. Colors in my work are pushed to reference emotions, climate change, nuclear reality, and artificial life. Rather than illustrate things and landscape in a Disney like fantasy way I paint scenes from real life that already appear surreal.

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Alan Brain

Dated February 7, 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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Casey Weldon

Dated November 10, 2017 Leave a Comment

Casey Weldon crafts surreal, sometimes absurd paintings that play with the everyday and the otherworldly alike. … “Weldon gambols with the manipulation of scale and contrast to create otherworldly scenes, as though pulled from the cavities of the unconscious and its latent thread-like associations,” the gallery says. “The works alternate between moments of intense darkness and incandescent light, figuratively and literally. Saturated with lush color and detail, they are stylized by idiosyncratic palette choices that capture a range of brightness and atmosphere, from the intensity of neon to the lambent of dusk and the recesses of twilight obscurity.”

via hifructose
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George Tooker

Dated November 8, 2017 Leave a Comment

George Clair Tooker 1920-2011 - American Magic Realist painter - 1

George Clair Tooker 1920-2011 - American Magic Realist painter - 2

George Clair Tooker 1920-2011 - American Magic Realist painter - 3

George Clair Tooker 1920-2011 - American Magic Realist painter - 4

George Clair Tooker 1920-2011 - American Magic Realist painter - 5

George Clair Tooker 1920-2011 - American Magic Realist painter - 6

George Clair Tooker 1920-2011 - American Magic Realist painter - 7

George Clair Tooker 1920-2011 - American Magic Realist painter - 8

George Clair Tooker 1920-2011 - American Magic Realist painter - 9

George Clair Tooker 1920-2011 - American Magic Realist painter - 10

George Clair Tooker 1920-2011 - American Magic Realist painter - 11

George Clair Tooker 1920-2011 - American Magic Realist painter - 12

George Tooker was an American figurative painter. His works are associated with Magic realism, Social realism, Photorealism and Surrealism. His subjects are depicted naturally but the images use flat tones, an ambiguous perspective, and alarming juxtapositions to suggest an imagined or dreamed reality. He did not agree with the association of his work with Magic realism or Surrealism, as he said, “I am after painting reality impressed on the mind so hard that it returns as a dream, but I am not after painting dreams as such, or fantasy.”

via NPR