Past work from Pamela Tait, an artist based in the Scottish Highlands, seemed to focus on humans with flourishes of the fantastic. Yet over the past few years, strange creatures have appeared more and more in Tait’s work. Works like “Nobody could deny the magnetic qualities of the naked mole rat,” above, may be anchored by a creature from reality, but it’s surrounded by an odd array of characters. Tait was last featured on HiFructose.com here.
“The Gathering Place,” from last year, is similarly concocted from both a familiar form and flourished of the bizarre. “High above the tree tops,” crafted with acrylic on board, gathers an array of unlike beings for a party above the forest, while “The Jinn party at Inshriach” must be inspected in sections to understand the scope of its weirdness.
Tait is part of the upcoming “Polygon” at Penny Contemporary Gallery, a group show that kicks off on Nov. 25 (which is the the “International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women”). Pamela Tait’s husband is Erlend Tait, a painter also based on the Black Isle. She is a graduate of Grays School of Art.
It might surprise some that watercolorist 
Argentinian artist 
Fred Tomaselli's psychedelic painting/collage hybrids have mind-altering tendencies in more ways than one. Over his career, the artist has earned a reputation for blending psychotropic substances with cut-out photos of animals and human parts to create his surreal works of art. Newer pieces shift the focus to more conventional photo collage and acrylic, yet are no less mesmerizing. Colorful and imaginative, Tomaselli's works are like portals to an alternate universe, where his "inquiry into utopia/dystopia - framed by artifice but motivated by the desire for the real - has turned out to be the primary subject".