Born in Canada and based in Manhattan, Karel Funk discovered the meaning of personal space while riding the New York subway for the first time. His subjects are the every day men and women he observes there at a close range. As Funk closes in past the comfort zone, he’s met with a certain rejection. Their clothing, hair or headphones act like a modern day armor that shields the viewer from any possibility to engage. Some paintings show only a jacket, a hood, or the back of a girl’s ponytail. What is left for us to speculate are things like folds in fabric, which Funk renders to a hyper-realistic point, and we become a voyeur to these details. His greatest focus lies in something that we can’t see, and that’s the implication of the unattainable person underneath. Despite all of his scrutiny, Funk remains unable to truly reach his subjects.
In the recent, enormous portraits painted by Mike Dargas, the artist pays homage to major figures in art history and tucks surprises into their contours. With “The Unbreakable," which honors Frida Kahlo, the artist says she was "physically broken but her spirit was unbreakable and her powerful essence eternal.” See more of his recent portraits below.
Currently living in Colombia, 
In cartoons, when a character is having a bad day, or particularly depressed, he will have his own small dark cloud following him, often raining and occasionally hitting him with lightning. The more depressed he is, the more it will be just rain, while lightning often indicates an angry mood. The figures and objects in the oil paintings of Toronto based artist 