Currently living in Colombia, John Barrios (previously covered here) portrays a surreal world rich with color and detail in his oil paintings. He strips down this world in his haunting black and white mixed media drawings. Barrios’ drawings, a combination of Graph Gear 500 mechanical pencil and watercolor, look similar to the under layers of his painted works. Their soft shading and light values reflect on his fascination with the subtleties of light. Sometimes, he abruptly “interrupts” the portrait with a line of light or shadow. Despite their ethereal feeling, these drawings are based on Barrios’ own black and white photography. At his instagram, he shares, “”I like especially the atmosphere of historical photographs… accidents like oxidation spots gives more mystique to the image.” Executed in a looser, but realistic style, one could almost not tell the difference between these and his larger monochromatic pieces online alone. Barrios will exhibit his drawings, alongside new paintings, later this summer at Galeria Victor Lope in Barcelona.
Though Athens, Greece-based artist 
Mikiko Kumazawa’s hand brings both richness and chaos touch to contemporary life. Whether in pencil drawings or visceral sculptures, the Tokyo-based artist depicts worlds that are just connected enough to our realities to inspire anxiety. Kumazawa was last featured on HiFructose.com