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Valeriu Buev

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The paintings of Moldovan artist Valeriu Buev explore the strange and poetic tragedy of the human condition. Although Buev uses the language of surrealism and dream, his stunning images remain fully rooted both psychically and technically in material reality. Through the processes of distortion and imagination, Buev confronts the stark costs of humanity’s darker tendencies, such as war and corruption.

And yet, Buev’s work doesn’t rely upon simplistic platitudes and does not fall back on propagandistic tropes. Instead, each gorgeously painted image is wildly open to interpretation through visual metaphor and rich layers of ambiguity.

Each surrealistic image is embedded firmly in the near past or possible symbolic present.

Buev doesn’t indulge in idealism or painting surrealist images disassociated from present reality. Instead, he unflinchingly confronts the stark realities of our world and transforms each transgression into something oddly beautiful, poetic, and archetypal.

Others of Buev’s images remain just beautiful and opaque. The artist’s symbolism suggests something meaningful. Like a Rorschach test, each skillfully crafted image queues the viewer to delve into his own subconscious. Our reading may tell us more about our own current emotional landscapes than we first assume.

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Prints can be obtained from Saatchi Art and on Fine Art America:

Valeriu Buev on Fine Art America

Valeriu Buev on Saatchi Art

Get Out, Atlanta, Sorry to Bother You, and The Afro-Surrealist Film Movement

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Add “Sorry To Bother You” to the mix and there appears to be an Afro-Surrealism resurgence in Black cinema.

"Get Out" Movie Still

Surrealism is the 20-century avant-garde artistic and literary movement that sought to stir the creative potential of the unconscious mind position seemingly irrational imagery adjacent to one another. Artist Salvador Dali is among the most respect of that era.

Surrealism in film draws upon many of the philosophical principles as in the art world, using shocking, irrational and absurd imagery to challenge conventional reality. American filmmaker David Lynch’s Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive are each considered among the best contemporary examples of this technique, while Alfred Hitchcock and Rod Serling were said to have each incorporated some surrealist ideals in their works.

First coined in 2009 by New Jersey’s Poet Laureate Amiri Baraka, Afro Surrealism focuses on the present day experience of African Americans as interpreted via artistic endeavor.

Read the full article at theshadowleague.com

What is Afro-Surrealism?

Afro-Surrealism or Afrosurrealism is a literary and cultural aesthetic that is a response to mainstream surrealism in order to reflect the lived experience of people of color. First coined by Amiri Baraka in 1974,[1] this movement focuses on the present day experience of African Americans. Afro-Surrealism is based on the manifesto written by D. Scot Miller, in which he says, “Afro-Surrealism sees that all ‘others’ who create from their actual, lived experience are surrealist…” The manifesto delineates Afro-Surrealism from Surrealism and Afro-Futurism. The manifesto also declares the necessity of Afro-Surrealism, especially in San Francisco, California. The manifesto lists ten tenants that Afro-Surrealism follows including how “Afro-Surrealists restore the cult of the past,” and how “Afro-Surreal presupposes that beyond this visible world, there is an invisible world striving to manifest, and it is our job to uncover it.”

Via Wikipedia.

Beth Hoeckel

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About Beth Hoeckel

Beth Hoeckel is a multidisciplinary artist and illustrator from Baltimore.

She earned a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she studied painting, photography, and printmaking— but her main area of expertise is in the medium of collage. Beth began her first widely-known series of collages in 2010, and has been a full-time freelance artist since 2012. Over the past 5 years her work has been exhibited around the world and published in many prestigious books and magazines.

Beth can currently be found creating collage and mixed media art for arts’ sake, as well as illustrating for a variety of clients including Rookie, Domino, The New York Times, and many more.

Beth Hoeckel Collage

Bonobo’s surrealist music video for ‘No Reason’

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With stunning cinematography (and no CGI), director Oscar Hudson pays homage to Japan’s social phenomenon of ‘Hikikomori’.
A dreamy, disconnected electronic beat plays as a Japanese teenager wakes up in his bedroom, visibly troubled at the thought of facing the day ahead of him. But there are tricks at play, as he walks through the door, only to find a replica of his bedroom ahead, and of him too, staring into the mirror. And then there is another, and another, till we see a series of bedrooms and the boy in it – only the room appears to be becoming smaller and more crowded as the boy gets bigger.
This linking of the psychological and the physical space plays as the perfect foil to British music producer Bonobo’s inspired number No Reason. Director Oscar Hudson mines the Japanese phenomenon of Hikikomori – when young people find themselves overwhelmed and end up as housebound recluses. According to the government, the number of hikikomori between the ages of 15 to 30 in Japan in 2015 numbered some 540,000.
The cinematography No Reason is inspired by the 2014 Oscar-winner Birdman. The vocals by Nick Murphy (also known as Chet Faker) contribute to the dream-like sequence and the feeling of overwhelming monotony. “We achieved the film using only in-camera physical effects and we designed an entirely new way of moving our miniature camera to get it to fit through the tiny doorways. Doing this film with CGI would have been a thousand times easier, but for me, it’s physicality and imperfections are what make it different, and, I hope better,” said Hudson.

Source: Watch: Bonobo’s surrealist music video for ‘No Reason’ is a visual treat (with a deeper message)

Christie Neptune Surreal Video Art: An Afro-Surrealist Sci-fi Future

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Christie Neptune’s “She Fell from Normalcy” Stills

Shadow of Self Series
Shadow of Self Series

Note On Surrealism, Past and Present

Followers of contemporary surreal art, and perhaps this blog, may forget that surrealism (and it’s precursor, Dada) were politically inspired art movements. Dada’s “anti-philosophy” developed in reaction to World War I. Surrealism became notorious for many reasons. One of these was affiliating itself with the Communist Party, and taking its time in distancing itself from this position after the realities of the Communist Party in Russia became apparent.

But a cursory look at this blog or the Surreal Art Tumblr might get the impression that contemporary surrealism is mainly eye-candy, fantasy, and escapism. Pop Surrealist Mark Ryden’s Meat Show being a glorious exception.

Christie Neptune’s Surreal Video Art

Today we’re pleased to present work by contemporary artist Christie Neptune. Neptune’s video art (below) uses surrealist techniques to explore issues of race, gender, class, and mental health. We’re excited when contemporary artists use the language of surrealism to look at complex issues. Neptune’s work doesn’t oversimplify, or fall into “bumper sticker slogan” or “refrigerator magnet” traps as political art sometimes does. No, that’s the currency of the 24-hour news cycle and the political machines: enticing us with easy answers to difficult problems, and infinitely repeating talking points. Neptune explores complex dynamics in this elegant, inspired, surrealistic video art and exhibition.

She Fell From Normalcy

In She Fell From Normalcy, Christie Neptune uses sound, installation, original writing and video throughout the gallery to build a world stripped of the limitations of race, gender and class. As subject, Neptune employs two females trapped in a sterile, white environment in which they are controlled by an unseen presence; it is only after a cataclysmic break in the system that the females are granted clarity and self-recognition.

Via Hamilton Gallery

She Fell from Normalcy continues through July 30 at Hamiltonian Gallery. For more information, click here.

In 1984, the author and Black feminist, Audre Lorde penned the essay, “Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference,” where a “mythical norm” was defined as “white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and financially secure.” Lorde wrote that anyone that exists outside of that identity lives on the margins of “the trappings of power.” In the exhibition She Fell from Normalcy,  artist Christie Neptune, counters those hegemonic idealizations described by Lorde through a sci-fi fantasy that centers around blackness, femininity, and a struggle with depression.

Neptune tells The Creators Project, “I deal with depression and it’s my attempt to reconcile that period. I developed this series of work that validates that experience in the African-American female. Depression is typically stigmatized in communities of color. It’s me speaking out and pulling away at those labels that limit my experience.” She adds, “You always hear this thing, ‘black people don’t get depressed that’s some white people shit.’ I decided to build up a mythical norm that is queued to Audre Lorde’s essay, where she describes how we are trying to live up to standards.”

Via Vice
Christie Neptune