Chicago-born artist Kayla Mahaffrey crafts portraits of subjects enveloped by pop totems and surreal elements. Her works are rendered in watercolors and acrylics, each oozing with vibrancy and candy colors. Her practice moves between illustration and fine art.
“Living in our society can be tough and most of the time we have to make the best of it,” she says. “A wild imagination can take you so far, but at the end of the day we need to realize and observe the world around us. And the world around us is where I find my inspiration to paint. Colorful paintings that contain hints of whimsy and realism that tell a story of inner thoughts and personal issues that sometimes go unheard.”
See more of her work below.
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".
In his third show at 111 Minna Gallery, Mike Davis offers new whimsical paintings that appear as a continuation of the Northern Renaissance while blending in notes of the artist’s own time period. "Crooked as a Dog's Hind Leg" kicks off on Jan. 10 and runs through Feb. 29 at the space. Davis was last featured on our site 
