Surrealism Today

Contemporary surreal, visionary and pop surreal art

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Allen Linder

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Artist Statement

Whether creating sculptures or paintings, it is a desire to fall deeper and deeper into my imagination that compels me. A desire to be surprised to discover what I am actually dwelling upon in the often obscured parts of my being. I like to strip away at what arises in my vision until it makes a kind of complete sense although I may not understand it quite yet. I work until the image somehow resonates with my life and speaks of something that I actually know through experience. It must be real in my life to hold any lasting interest for me. I have sometimes thought that I am taking what is ordinary and extraordinary in my life and refocusing it through a lens of symbolic form. That way it can speak to me on all levels at once. I never think too long on a title for I simply call it what it is.

About

Allen Linder has been a nationally exhibiting fine artist for over 30 years.

Please direct all inquiries to lindersculpture@gmail.com

Biography

Thinking In Stone:

Employing the archaic philosophy and methodology of direct carving, Allen Linder sculpts contemporary artifacts—solid works embodying the present, extolling life and preserving the human spirit.

The act of carving and grinding away at stone, wax and bronze is an intuitive practice: ideas and images stimulated by life events emerge from Linder’s subconscious mind. The objects are a complete syntheses of his personal narrative and mythology, directly connected to the awe, beauty, joy and mystery of daily existence, namely the infinite possibility of experience and personhood. There are many narratives present; the work is left open and becomes a sort of spiritual fiction.

Linder “feels his way into form” in search of its center. His ideas play on a single scientific and spiritual metaphor: the need for resistance. The result of his process is hyperbolic sculpture in which content and form unite to distill existential thought using timeless, figurative gesture.

His sculptures explore physicality, the purity of material, and the construction of tactile, illusory awareness through his own psychological and transcendent reality. His work is at once somber and playful, comical and sublime, the posturing symbolic of life.

Links:

https://www.lindersculpture.com
http://www.facebook.com/lindersculpture
https://www.instagram.com/maninfreefall/
https://www.saatchiart.com/lindersculpture

Chris Leib

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Artist Statement

Chris Leib examines our precarious path started long ago, through his cast of wise, tolerant bonobos and rambunctious astronaut children. While seemingly whimsical, the paintings are laden with hidden meaning and explore themes of heroism, Western folklore, and the schism of instinct and control. Weaving through the meticulous detail in these paintings, threads of symbols and narrative point to a collision trajectory of power, privacy and technology that threatens our delicate position in the evolutionary scheme.

Chris Leib is an American fine artist and graduate of anthropology, renowned for his iconography of bonobo chimps and astronauts and cosmonauts, often juxtaposed, with exquisite technique and scrupulous attention to detail. Transcending whimsy, his paintings are imbued with meaning and intellectual contemplation. Leib’s work explores themes of heroism, human endeavour and the sensitivity of human hopes and ambitions for possible realities of science-fact. His work challenges us to contemplate a collision of science fiction, reality and religion, this three-car pileup viewed from the vantage point of our evolutionary ancestors, who have quietly continued to evolve themselves.

Chris Leib was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and splits his time between Berlin and California. His father, an artist and teacher, encouraged him to draw from an early age. His love of science fiction and Star Trek was incubated in the 1970s in a dark basement while he watched black and white TV; his interest in primates began at the University of California Berkeley, where he studied anthropology. After college, while working as a furniture mover, he answered an ad seeking people who could sketch. Four months later, he was offered a job as an illustrator. He later studied at the Academy of Art in San Francisco, after which he apprenticed with the Italian portrait painter Roberto Lupetti. During this time he also began working as an illustrator for McGraw-Hill Publishing and exhibiting paintings.

Leib has exhibited his artwork across the United States as well as in Germany, France, Denmark and Australia. His art has been positively reviewed in Hi-Fructose magazine, Huffington Post, Kunst Magazin (Berlin), Supersonic Electronic, Village Voice, Beautiful Bizarre, and HEY! magazine. Leib has twice been an Artist in Residence at the De Young Museum in San Francisco and has received competitive grants from the George Sugarman Foundation and the San Francisco Arts Commission. His work can be found in important public and private collections in the United States and Europe.

Links

chrisleib.com
Chris Leib Prints
facebook.com/ChrisLeibArt
instagram.com/chrisleibart

Marjorie Darrow

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Gateway to the Subconscious

Artist Statement

The main theme of my work has always been the connection and synergy of all living organisms. It’s symbolic of the delicate balance and inter-dependency of life. I see these interconnections as a perfectly choreographed dance where each element is singular, yet part of the whole. It’s a simple and timely message, and my hope is that the viewer recognizes this in my artwork and takes with them a sensitivity and awareness of all life forms on the planet. My art is a process. The physical act of drawing or painting taps into my creativity, and there are always new discoveries and surprises. I view this process as a gateway to my subconscious because it’s not analytical. It’s completely intuitive. I typically begin with an initial inspiration, such as an ancient bristlecone pine tree, or an exotic orchid, or even the structure of a single cell. Sometimes this initial inspiration is representational, and at other times it may become abstracted, or so stylized as to appear surreal. From that point on I trust in the creative process to lead me. I start every painting with a detailed drawing. The act of drawing is where most of my creativity happens. It’s like a stream-of-conscious where each new element leads to another, and the connections between them evolve – sometimes with surprising results!

marjoriedarrow.com
instagram.com/marjoriedarrowart
facebook.com/MarjorieDarrowArt

The Art of Mark Hopkins

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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