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Aof Smith’s Candy-Colored, Pop-Surrealist Scenes

Bangkok-based artist Aof Smith is known for his candy-colored, Pop-Surrealist scenes, cacophonies of his distinct cutesy characters and unsettling action. Smith’s massive paintings contain even stranger details upon inspection. His figures often stand in contrast, with humans offering an odd point of entry in these wild narratives.

“Aof Smith maintains the dream-scape of the surrealists and the celebration of the shallow world often associated to pop art,” a statement says. “Having developed his own style, Aof Smith personal sense of colours brings forward vivid and full-flavoured visuals that add dimensions and volume to the layers of characters in his works. In this exhibition, not only does Aof Smith spare no techniques, he also uses special colours to add further depths to his fantasy world.”

See more of Smith’s work below.

Topics

Aof Smith, painting, Pop Surrealism

Barbara Tosatto, painting, theater

July 1, 2014

Swiss painter Barbara Tosatto’s work takes cues from the storied and symbolic. Most of her pieces focus on a solitary figure, transplanted in some vacant background, isolated from indicators of time or setting. These figures are human, but disrupted — bound in sheets and gauzy veils, or weighed down with ropes or chains. With titles like “The Tyranny of Doubt” or “The Truce” it’s hard not to see the pieces as portraits of mythological characters, embodying some archetypal human ability or curse. Mostly depicted with their faces obscured, or contorted from some type of bondage, the figures’ entrapment seems more tragic in their desolate surroundings, offering no alternative to the struggle. But their situation is still somehow noble, if seen as shouldering the weight of humanity’s conditions.

Julio Reyes’s Oil Paintings of People in Moments of Solitude

Julio Reyes, painting

February 13, 2015

Raised in Los Angeles in a family of immigrants, Julio Reyes says that one of his biggest inspirations is the human ability to overcome adversity. His family's journey to the US and their tumultuous quest for citizenship has always been a guiding light in his work. "I have always been moved by the human capacity to love, dream, and persevere, with great courage and sincerity, in spite of what can often be, a vast and unsympathetic Nature," wrote Reyes in an email to Hi-Fructose. Because of the struggles he has personally faced, Reyes says he has cultivated a keen sense of empathy that he seeks to convey in his oil paintings, which often feature solitary figures in moments of contemplation.

Masaaki Sasamoto’s Gilded, Surreal Worlds

illustration, Masaaki Sasamoto, painting

March 14, 2018

Tokyo-born artist Masaaki Sasamoto creates surreal worlds bathed in gold, mixing mythological iconography and the painter’s own, distinctive figures. The butterfly is one of the most common components in Sasamoto’s work, whether enveloping his subjects or fully embedded into them. Some of these scenes also carry notes of steampunk and futuristic, manga-inspired flourishes.

Lars Elling’s Poetic Paintings Recall Memories

Lars Elling, painting, surrealism

September 23, 2017

The dreamlike, abstracted figures in Lars Elling’s paintings appear to be pieces of memories. The Norway-based artist has spent the best few decades building a distinct and narrative-based body of work.

Aof Smith’s Candy-Colored, Pop-Surrealist Scenes

Barbara Tosatto Theatrical Paintings Hint at Mythological Themes

Julio Reyes’s Oil Paintings of People in Moments of Solitude

Masaaki Sasamoto’s Gilded, Surreal Worlds

Lars Elling’s Poetic Paintings Recall Memories

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