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Jasmime Worth’s “Dark Night of the Soul” and Chet Zar’s “The Demon Show”

Tomorrow night, Chet Zar’s “The Demon Show” and Jasmine Worth’s “Dark Night of the Soul” side by side solo shows are opening at Last Rites Gallery in NYC. Both shows will be on view May 23rd through July 3rd, 2015. In “Dark Night of the Soul”, Worth explores the act of transformation through suffering. Inspired by both the occult and female experience, the artist utilizes meticulous layering techniques to craft scenes from fairytales gone awry, swirling seamlessly between the sweet and the morbid. With “The Demon Show,” Zar’s subject matter is surreal and darkly humorous yet genuine in its existence, often revealing humankind at its barest form. As the artist states, “We all share feelings of fear and loneliness. We feel insecure and vulnerable. We feel separate from our environment and each other. These are the feelings that I try to convey in my paintings. These are the feelings that connect us.” Visually, the artist’s work expresses a unifying thread that we are all the same within and contains a bold message: we are the monsters.

Jasmine Worth:

Chet Zar:

Topics

Chet Zar, Jasmine Worth, Last Rites Gallery, surrealism

drawing, Miles Johnston, surrealism

September 27, 2018

Miles Johnston's surreal drawings bring elegance and distortion to our natural forms. The artist is contributing to the upcoming "Hi-Fructose Presents: The Art of The Mushroom" group show at the Compound Gallery in October, and in this post, takes us through the process of creating his work in the show. (He was also featured in Hi-Fructose Vol. 45)

A Look Inside the Sketchbook of Watercolorist Daniel Merriam

AFA Gallery, Baroque, Daniel Merriam, surrealism, Watercolor

June 5, 2015

If Daniel Merriam's watercolors were books, they would be fairytales once upon a time in a far away European dreamland. The painter, who is currently exhibiting at AFA Gallery (covered here), compares his process to a writer's. In our recent interview, Merriam told us about the influence of 17th and 18th century Baroque architecture on his works which he draws from memory. Although imaginary, his elaborate structures must be believable in their world, and he builds them out carefully as a point of reference. In this sense, one could also call him an architect.

On View: Vincent Xeus’s’ “Love — Fragmented Traditions” at Last Rites Gallery

Fragmented Traditions, Last Rites Gallery, Love, Vincent Xeus

January 14, 2015

Vincent Xeus's shadowy portraits reference the Italian and Dutch masters. But rather than directly emulating the techniques of Caravaggio and Rembrandt, he builds on their styles to create works with a moody, haunted ambiance. He scratches and smudges his anachronistic portraits with his paintbrush, making them appear broken and somehow corrupt. His subjects' faces become ghostly and unrecognizable — their images, relics of an opulent society with a dark underbelly. Xeus's new work is currently on view in his solo show, "Love — Fragmented Traditions," showing through February 14 at Last Rites Gallery in New York.

Yusk Imai Draws a Dark, Fragmented Place Called “Elsewhere”

Art Nouveau, drawing, monochromatic, surrealism, Yusk Imai

October 13, 2015

Berlin-based artist Yusk Imai creates fragmented monochromatic figures that draw upon a variety of artistic styles. Previously featured on our blog, Imai's work channels themes found in Art Nouveau, as in his ornate detailing, or Surrealism, in more bizarre renderings, to modern day comic books. Often, these themes address the idea of an uncontrollable world all around us, whether through psychology, symbolism, or the supernatural. In his most recent works, Imai tries to understand the psychology behind feelings like forgetfulness and distraction. These explorations often take him "elsewhere", to some strange other-world within his subconscious that is governed by dark characters.

Jasmime Worth’s “Dark Night of the Soul” and Chet Zar’s “The Demon Show”

Inside Miles Johnston’s Process for Creating His ‘Art of the Mushroom’ Drawing

A Look Inside the Sketchbook of Watercolorist Daniel Merriam

On View: Vincent Xeus’s’ “Love — Fragmented Traditions” at Last Rites Gallery

Yusk Imai Draws a Dark, Fragmented Place Called “Elsewhere”

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