Surrealism Today

Surreal art by contemporary artists

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.

Nicolas Gadbois Surreal Landscapes

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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.

nicolasgadboisart.com

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Alan Brain

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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 🙂
facebook.com/AlanBrainArt
alanbrainart.com

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Casey Weldon

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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
caseyweldon.com

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George Tooker

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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

George Tooker Books

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Christopher R. Mindle Pop Surrealism and Fantasy

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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/

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