Though several of Dan Lydersen’s oil paintings are contemporary in content, the engine that fuels these works consists of timeless bouts with spirituality, nature, and materiality. There’s a surreal quality some; a somber realism in others. Yet, in each piece, Lydersen’s knack for evoking introspection carries. The backdrops move between suburbia, rural America, and more scenic, wild settings in which the ordinary Western experience (like kids on a bounce house) is extracted and dispatched. Lynderson was last mentioned on HiFructose.com here, with his Thinkspace Gallery show “Endless Vacation” with Jeff Ramirez.
The artists describes his process: “Some are calculated references to art history or contemporary culture and others are the result of free association, improvisation or imaginative flights of fancy,” the artist says, in a statement. “B Some paintings aspire towards coherent satire or self-reflexive commentary on the nature of painting while others use history and current events as a loose foundation for constructing open-ended narratives.”
This year, the artist takes part in three group shows: “Unnatural Histories V” at Antler Gallery in Portland, “LAX/ORD” at Vertical Gallery in Chicago, and “The New Vanguard” at the Lancaster Museum of Art and History. The artist graduated with his MFA in painting from San Francisco Art Institute in 2007.
Russian artist Dimitry Vorsin creates beguiling surrealist worlds populated with mystifying and erotic characters. Drawing influence from Salvador Dali, his figures are often elongated and with decapitated limbs. For example, one arm of a woman in a running pose morphs into what appears as a rat’s tail. The other is shown in a puppet-like construction, controlled by small nymphs wearing tall spiraling headwraps that match the woman’s own grandiose headware. The sexually fraught image suggests the power of the psyche to serve as a symbolic whip.
Joshua Hagler's new, massive oil paintings are packed with tension and political reflections, each appearing as memories emerging and dissipating. "Chimera” is his upcoming show at Unit London, named for the mythological creature or in a more contemporary sense, has “come to mean something which is hoped for, but is impossible to achieve.” The show begins on July 19 and runs through the end of August.