Chicago based artist Jonathan Gardner’s figurative-pop works combine an overabundance of 20th century styles. His paintings feature simplified figures in spaces that borrow visual techniques by artists like Pablo Picasso, Rene Magritte, Henri Matisse, and Fernand Léger. Gardner makes otherwise mundane scenes more interesting by enhancing the patterns in things like his subject’s clothing, wallpaper, and tiled floors. Some of his subjects appear more melancholy, others more humored and lively, as in his images of women tanning by the swimming pool and playing tennis. Like actors in a play, a few reappear in the same pose in entirely different scenes. We can especially see Matisse’s influence in the way he contours women using colors, shadows and details that are unusual and unrealistic. Along with this, features such as their breasts, arms and legs are portrayed more along the lines of avant-garde, which presented a very stylized, geometric image of women. They are almost always seen smoking perfectly puffy clouds of smoke, a common motif in Magritte’s works as well. Every piece is an experimentation where, like these modern masters who painted primarily from their imagination, Gardner is presenting us with an imaginary life of leisure.
Hyper-realist painter 
Portuguese multimedia artist 
New York based painter and illustrator
Filipino surrealist Jon Jaylo creates brilliantly colored and riddled oil paintings inspired by poetry and stories. His paintings have earned him the moniker "The Enigma" for his puzzling depictions of a parallel universe where animals wear clothes, children take on adult personas and gravity ceases to exist. Jaylo has said that he is never completely satisfied with his style, which varies from piece to piece, influenced by a range of artists like Rene Magritte, Paul Delvaux, Gustav Klimt, Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dalí, and William Bougereau. Opening September 12th, Jaylo will make his US debut with his solo exhibition "As the Moon Draws Water" at Distinction Gallery in California.