Futaro Mitsuki‘s hyperdetailed drawings use pointillism and mythology to craft absorbing scenes. The Tokyo-born artist crafts works that infuse a broader art history with traditional Japanese iconography. With works like 2017’s “Monna Lisa,” that infusion is both startling and most present.
Much of the artist’s work blends ink, acrylics, and pencil. “Futaro Mitsuki expresses the excitement and sensation of when an imaginary human in gorgeous costume encounters items from other cultures and other times,” Gallery Korgue says. “From that, the costume as the forms of portraits, sometimes like a slow motion, and sometimes as a dubious portrait. His expression of the Japanese kimonos he loves the most is overwhelming. The pointillistic paintings he carefully creates dot by dot, taking hours of time to gather viewers from different culture in today’s world in front of his work.”
See more of the artist’s work below.
Houston-based artist Ana Marietta paints and draws animals with exaggerated human features to create sympathy for her subjects. Looking at a raven with wide eyes glassy with tears, or a frowning pelican dimpled with warts, one feels the animal's deep sorrow. The creatures appear to look outward however, suggesting their sadness comes from the environment, as opposed to any personal ailments directly. Their anthropomorphic deformities hint at something unnatural, an effect explained only by human behavior and intervention.
Dasha Pliska's pencil drawings carry drama and ghostly grace. The Ukraine illustrator works primarily in monochromatic modes, elegantly moving between skin tones and billowing forms moving across the page. And recent personal projects, such as "repletion," show the artist's knack for utilizing negative space.
South African artist Linsey Levendall has a hyper-detailed style that appears at once chaotic and controlled. His work moves between surreal scenes packed with figures and objects that nearly resemble Rube Goldberg machine in their connectivity and a looser, multi-hued style that focuses on a single subject.