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.

Christopher R. Mindle Pop Surrealism and Fantasy

Dated July 31, 2017 Leave a Comment

Artist Statement

I’ve been creating art most of my life. I started painting seriously about ten years ago, showing my pieces at various local shows in the Allston, MA, area where I was living at the time. Six years ago, I made the decision to get serious and go back to school, graduating in 2015 from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

I’m interested in decay, distressed or worn and used objects, dark humor, emotions, and the underlying stories often overlooked. I love Surrealism, Pop Surrealism, Fantasy and Lowbrow, but don’t strictly define my work in any of those genres because often I stray outside of them.

My preferred mediums are oil and occasionally acrylic. I use traditional methods such as the Flemish seven layer method to build dense, rich backgrounds, and these days often mix accidental/abstract components with realism to create my fantasy landscapes and scenes.

Many of my images and ideas come from my dreams and early fantasies. As a child, I had a very active imagination and I’m still working with some of my thoughts and stories from my past. I’m influenced by fantasy, horror, science fiction, my life experiences and what I see around me in the world today. Some of my themes are completely imaginative and brightly whimsical, others more political and intensely disturbing. To all of this I sometimes add a lowbrow twist, often with dark humor.

http://www.crmindlegallery.com/
https://www.facebook.com/chrismindle/

Origin and Consequence – The Art of Larain Briggs

Dated July 27, 2017 Leave a Comment

Artist Statement

My work has for many years been inspired by Carl Jung and exploring my subconscious. I work through painting, assemblage, digital art, and installation, employing various strategies to access animus, the shadow, my elan vital. Through creative expression, I attempt to create the inner reality of my psyche. My work acts as a mirror where I try to see my soul – the inner workings of my mind. It transcends persona and barriers to connect with my true self where I hope to reconcile internal conflicts and heal myself. It would be impossible to communicate these aspects of my psyche verbally. The work is full of symbolism and archetypes which I believe are viewed in turn by the viewer in an unconscious manner. I hope that this will also be as therapeutic for the audience as it is for myself. I invite others to have a glimpse of a mind that is often troubled, anxious and depressed and to find empathy and understanding for people who are suffering from mental illness. I hope to touch the soul of anyone viewing my work. My work varies in style and is mostly influenced by the work of other artists, my mood, and environment. Recently Rauschenberg’s Combines have inspired me to create pieces that incorporate painting and assemblage, sometimes recycling art that I created some time in the past.

Biography

Larain Briggs studied Fine Art at Camberwell and education in Art at Goldsmiths in London, UK. Briggs studied for a BSc in Computer Aided Visualisation at the Anglia Polytechnic University and Art Therapy at the Institute for Art in Therapy and Education. Briggs now focuses on her multidisciplinary art practice full time.

larainbriggs.com

Chris Boyko Abstract Surrealism

Dated March 24, 2017 Leave a Comment

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Chris Boyko paints bizarre, strange, and unusual works. Each painting represents a hidden reality from the artist’s subconscious. These representations skirt the boundaries of surrealism and abstraction. Form and shape emerge from the paint. Nearly recognizable and figurative, yet remaining alien, beyond reach, ambiguous. Shapes or sculptures resemble figures or images found in wisps of smoke or clouds in the sky.

In Boyko’s worlds, weird alien figures (like goop) reach out and clasp each other. Are these are psychic, metaphorical structures? Crystalized memories? Microscopic organisms? Or alien landscapes? The viewer’s mind stumbles for answers… but finds weird ambiguity, and their own subconscious revelations reflected back at them.

Artist Statement

The subconscious is constructed like a giant web, which as a whole creates an individual. If one were to examine each individual piece, they would realize it’s composed of multiple ideas, memories, and feelings which are constantly shifting. It’s this shift within our subconscious that changes our perception of reality. It’s why each of us can respond differently to a multitude of situations.

Using automatic painting techniques, my mind enters a meditative state. As I begin to follow the strings of the subconscious web, the organic forms develop within the painting. One form leads to another, like a trail of thoughts. It’s as if my mind and the paint are in sync with each other. As I explore my own mind, gaining an understanding of myself; I’m also gaining an understanding of the forms.

boykoart.com
instagram.com/boykoart

Fine Art by Ruben Cukier

Dated December 7, 2016 Leave a Comment

Oils by Argentinean artist Ruben Cukier

About Ruben Cukier

Born and raised in Buenos Aires in 1964, Cukier chooses colors and shades that reveal a yearning for a less superficial, less deceptive reality. The forms, dimensions and colors give shape to dreams and nightmares, and even allude to a notion of hope. Humor is used to reflect fears, habits and desires that most of us deny and suppress deep within.

The dictionary defines surrealism , as a style of art and literature, stressing the subconscious or non rational significance of imagery arrived at by automatism or the exploitation of chance effects and unexpected juxtapositions.
Ruben Cukier, surrealist painter, born and raised in politically violent Buenos Aires, is a member of an illustrious roster of artists who’s vivid imagination and fantasy informed their art making.
Visual artists from Salvador Dali, Fernando Botero , Dorothea Tanning and writers such as Jose Saramago, Carlos Fuentes and Franz Kafka, to name a very few, have mined the rich subconscious for imagery.

Unexpected juxtapositions that, at first, are baffling and thought provoking but when considered more closely, produce a frisson of recognition. The recognition of dreams , fears or thoughts that we ourselves may have experienced at one time or another. That is why, I feel, his paintings are so appealing . Ruben Cukiers paintings depict images and ideas that are ,not only pleasing and visually stunning, but also somehow universal and timeless.

– Lydia Schrufer, BFA.
rubencukierart.com

Robert Deyber Painting

Dated August 21, 2016 1 Comment

“My ongoing body of work involves the visual interpretation of cliches, euphemisms, and idioms. There has been a fascination for me going back years involving various formations within the English language. There are so many peculiar and quirky phrases which have been calling out to be put into visual form. In many cases, I can be motivated by a single word.

In creating these works the challenge is to take whimsical imagery and attempt to render it in a contemplative and elegant manner without being obtuse. My goal is also to take something common and elevate it to the uncommon and create theater, an unfamiliar and unexplored scene.

Each phrase depicted is singularly allegorical and embraces the intrinsic beauty and waggish imaginings found within the various forms of language we all use on a daily basis.”
~ Robert Deyber