Some of our past articles may not have images. Click here to see those that do.

Opening Night: Lori Earley’s “The Devil’s Pantomime” at Opera Gallery

On Saturday, June 7, the eminent pop surrealist painter Lori Earley opened a solo show at Opera Gallery in Soho, New York, featuring 34 new oil paintings as well as earlier portraiture drawings of her iconic female characters. The exhibition “The Devil's Pantomime” is opulent in its simplicity. The artist beckons an otherworldly beauty by magnifying the intrinsic features of a woman's face, and reaches the sensory-equivalent of how silk stockings, leather, and dewy skin feels in pure, color form.

Lori Earley. Right Before the Rain. Oil on board.

On Saturday, June 7, the eminent pop surrealist painter Lori Earley (HF Vol. 13 cover artist) opened a solo show at Opera Gallery in Soho, New York, featuring 34 new oil paintings as well as earlier portraiture drawings of her iconic female characters. The exhibition “The Devil’s Pantomime” is opulent in its simplicity. The artist beckons an otherworldly beauty by magnifying the intrinsic features of a woman’s face, and reaches the sensory-equivalent of how silk stockings, leather, and dewy skin feels in pure, color form.

The most satisfying aspect of viewing Earley’s show in person is the unavoidable experience of being overwhelmed by the visceral fervor that the artist originally instilled in her work — physically, through meticulous dark-to-light layers of paint, as well as psychologically, by giving her characters emotional depth and unique temperaments. The artist often paints the women with pastel-colored hair. They gaze back with learned, unforgiving eyes, as if Earley is allowing her portraits the power of choice. “The Devil’s Pantomime,” Earley’s largest show to date, celebrates the artist’s nearly-obsessive attention to finding beauty in the lonesome and solitary dimensions of her characters.

“The Devil’s Pantomime” will be on view at Opera Gallery through June 26.

Lori Earley next to her work. Right Before the Rain. Oil on board.

Lori Earley. Anhedonia. Oil on board.

Lori Earley. The Transformation. Oil on board.

Installation view of “The Devil’s Pantomime.”

Lori Earley. Women in the Green Dress. Oil on board.

Lori Earley. Black-Eyed Susan (Please Remember…). Oil on board.

Installation view at Opera Gallery.

Lori Earley at Opera Gallery in New York City.

Lori Earley. La Femme Aux Cheveux De Lilas. Oil on board.

Left: Right Before the Rain. Oil on board. Right: Cocktail Hour. Oil on board.

Lori Earley. Denise. Oil on board.

Lori Earley at Opera Gallery in New York City.

Portrait study drawing.

Lori Earley. The Woman Who Ignored the Mantis’ Warning. Oil on board.

Lori Earley. Cocktail Hour. Oil on board.

Topics

Lori Earley, Opera Gallery, Pop Surrealism, The Devil's Pantomime

Andy Kehoe, painting, Pop Surrealism

October 4, 2017

Andy Kehoe crafts fantastical mixed-media paintings often featuring strange, antlered creatures that move through forests. There’s an unexpected depth to Kehoe’s paintings due to his process of painting on top of layers of poured resins. Kehoe uses “sculpted elements made of polymer clay into his works, submerging the forms beneath the strata of pigmented layers.” The artist has a new show at Thinkspace Gallery titled "Prismatic."

Camille Rose Garcia Imagines Gothic-psychedelic Nature in New Exhibit

Camille Rose Garcia, Pop Surrealism

March 1, 2016

Camille Rose Garcia once described her role as a fine artist as a person who gets to create worlds that don't exist. Featured in a special sketchbook insert in Hi-Fructose Vol. 30 and on the cover of Hi-Fructose Vol. 8, looking at her art is like looking through the looking glass into a warped, dark fairytale. It's a place full of dripping scenery, bejeweled forests with elegant swans, deer, serpents, and skulls, and her signature women with bold eyelashes and running mascara, empowered versions of the folkloric and cartoon princesses that inspired them.

Brack Metal’s Pop-Influenced Imagined Worlds

Brack Metal, illustration, Pop Surrealism

June 30, 2017

Hong Kong-born, Australia-based artist Gerald Leung illustrates under the moniker “Brack Metal.” The artist’s intricate style seems to take notes from both manga and American comics, surrealism, tattoo art, and other pop culture touchstones. His character studies, in particular, appear as mash-ups without restriction.

Mab Graves’ Tiny Waifs in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland, Mab Graves, mark ryden, Peter Pan, Pop Surrealism

December 21, 2014

No more than a few inches high, these tiny paintings by Indiana-based artist Mab Graves are very much in the spirit of the winter season. In the slightly off-putting style of Big Eyes' Margaret Keane (Vol 34), her dolly-eyed misfits adventure through haunting wintery landscapes and county fairs. Inspired by fairytales and classic literature, along the way they make friends with characters like dachshunds and the Dish who ran away with the Spoon. They always seem to be fleeing- emancipated from the bleakness of reality into Graves' dream world.

Opening Night: Lori Earley’s “The Devil’s Pantomime” at Opera Gallery

Andy Kehoe’s Fantastical, New Mixed-Media Paintings

Camille Rose Garcia Imagines Gothic-psychedelic Nature in New Exhibit

Brack Metal’s Pop-Influenced Imagined Worlds

Mab Graves’ Tiny Waifs in Wonderland

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List

Follow us on our social networks

Shop

Subscribe

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List