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Portraits of Hooded Figures by Karel Funk

Born in Canada and based in Manhattan, Karel Funk discovered the meaning of personal space while riding the New York subway for the first time. His subjects are the every day men and women he observes there at a close range. As Funk closes in past the comfort zone, he's met with a certain rejection. Their clothing, hair or headphones act like a modern day armor that shields the viewer from any possibility to engage. Some paintings show only a jacket, a hood, or the back of a girl's ponytail. What is left for us to speculate are things like folds in fabric, which Funk renders to a hyper-realistic point, and we become a voyeur to these details.

Born in Canada and based in Manhattan, Karel Funk discovered the meaning of personal space while riding the New York subway for the first time. His subjects are the every day men and women he observes there at a close range. As Funk closes in past the comfort zone, he’s met with a certain rejection. Their clothing, hair or headphones act like a modern day armor that shields the viewer from any possibility to engage. Some paintings show only a jacket, a hood, or the back of a girl’s ponytail. What is left for us to speculate are things like folds in fabric, which Funk renders to a hyper-realistic point, and we become a voyeur to these details. His greatest focus lies in something that we can’t see, and that’s the implication of the unattainable person underneath. Despite all of his scrutiny, Funk remains unable to truly reach his subjects.

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Attractive and Awkward Portraits by Peter Stichbury

New Zealand based artist Peter Stichbury combines attractive good looks with ugliness in 1950s style portraits. His Big-Eyed young subjects represent non-conventional beauty, something we can find in today's supermodels and misfits alike. Stichbury regards these young people as a collective group in society, which he renders in a style that flattens their facial features to a non specific point. In their abstract, clone-like similarities, they become anonymous and linked to one another. They are intentionally deprived of human emotion, owing to their awkwardness. At the same time, his aesthetic can be regarded as strangely realistic.

Henk Pander Paints Dramatic Personal Accounts Through History

The vivid paintings and drawings of Henk Pander reflect on a lifetime of experiences - memories of Nazi-occupied Europe, the Vietnam war, and 1960s counterculture all make their way into his dramatic imagery set against the backdrop of Oregon. Pander first moved to Portland from the Netherlands in the 1960s, and continued to work as a stage set designer through the 70s and 80s, owing to his theatrical style. There is a surrealism in his realism. That is to say, his works capture the nightmare of real life disasters, death, disease and pollution. With the technique of European masters like Holbein and Dutch landscape painters, many images find the quiet moments before and after death, in spite of their horrifying circumstances.

Denmark Artist Rune Christensen’s Paintings of Tattooed Subjects

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Neo-Orientalist Lui Liu Questions Contemporary Chinese Culture

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