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The New Contemporary Art Magazine
Though dipping into the otherworldly, Kelly Denato's acrylic paintings represent the prism of human emotions. At once optimistic and sullen, the figures in her work appear to be constantly in a state of transition. The New York City artist's gallery work is a complement to her illustrative jobs with the likes of Nickelodeon, Timex, and other major clients.
Painted on wood, the textures of Agostino Arrivabene's surreal works garner new, striking qualities. The above piece is one of the newer works on similar natural canvases from the artist, who was last featured on HiFructose.com here. Arrivabene's experimentations also includes work on conglomerate mineral and other woodland findings.
Jos. A Smith’s dreamlike paintings move between elegance and cacophony. His horse-riders, specifically, carry a quality have a surreal, yet granular quality that invites close inspection. Part of the artist's work his rooted in his practice of "of trance techniques learned from the Nyngmapa sect of Tibetan Buddhism, research psychologists, anthropologists, and shamans with my own dream records to make that membrane between my waking state and my unconscious more permeable."
Alexander Churchill’s riveting paintings are brimming with color, each strange scene accented by pouring hues. In "Absurdist Futility" series, in particular, offers an absorbing collection of narratives and uncomfortably close portraits.
In Stuart Holland's charcoal drawings, reality is questioned through massive architecture and solitary figures. There’s both a cerebral and magical quality to these scenes, vague in its ties to actual reality. The gray values in his drawings, whether rendering abstract or geometric forms, add to their psychological nature.
Miles Johnston's surreal drawings bring elegance and distortion to our natural forms. The artist is contributing to the upcoming "Hi-Fructose Presents: The Art of The Mushroom" group show at the Compound Gallery in October, and in this post, takes us through the process of creating his work in the show. (He was also featured in Hi-Fructose Vol. 45)
Julie Heffernan’s oil paintings imagine habitats and situations formed in response to environmental collapse. "When the Water Rises: Recent Paintings by Julie Heffernan,” a new exhibition coming to the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, offers these recent pieces. It runs Sept. 22 through Dec. 30 at the venue.
Tof Vanmarque continues to evolve the shifting perspectives and details of his elaborate acrylic paintings. One of the hallmarks of Vanmarque’s style is blending lush hues with makeshift bodies and eroding structures, each scene its own strange narrative. The artist was last featured on our website here.
Mikiko Kumazawa’s hand brings both richness and chaos touch to contemporary life. Whether in pencil drawings or visceral sculptures, the Tokyo-based artist depicts worlds that are just connected enough to our realities to inspire anxiety. Kumazawa was last featured on HiFructose.com here.
Ceren Aksungur, also known as Dolce Paganne, is an Antwerp-based artist who crafts surreal, unsettling drawings and paintings. Her work combines both the strange and the mundane, subverting the everyday. Works such as "Pomegrenade," implement both acrylics and colored pencil on paper.
Artist Brett Crawford looks at his pieces as collaborations between the work and the viewer, each an inviting narrative. His new show at 111 Minna Gallery, "Caravan," features paintings that blend pop culture, mythology, and otherwise odd moments. The show kicks off on July 6.
Karine Rougier’s mystical "Wild waves in our hands" touches both on our tribal nature and explores femininity. The show is staged at Catinca Tabacaru Gallery in New York City throughout the month. On the show, the gallery says this: “Women are Rougier’s muses; poetry her nourishment: an ode to Ingeborg Bachmann, Rainer Maria Rilke, les Métamorphoses d’Ovide.”
Seungyea Park, also known as Spunky Zoe, crafts cerebral, stirring drawings that reflect varying internal tensions. Subjects, sometimes including the artist, do more than push, pull, and prod their faces: Their fingers pass through their skin and subvert its properties, conveying a spectrum of emotions.
The vulnerable, fantastical oil paintings of Scott G. Brooks offer both narratives and raw portraiture. Though the artist has a knack for large-scale, intricate scenes, he can pack immense power in his single-character works. Brooks was last featured on our website here. In a statement, the artist talks about where his paintings come from.
The wild oil paintings of Kit Mizeres return in a new show at Arch Enemy Arts. "Farewell Transmission" explores the concept of solitude, with new works packed with mythological symbols and inspiration from the artist’s travels. Mizeres was last mentioned on HiFructose.com here.
With “Feast of Totems,” oil painter Emily Mae Smith examines and deconstructs motifs from art history, "claiming space for feminine subjectivity” and often featuring a multi-representational “Broom” character. The show kicks off on June 9 and runs through July 14 at the gallery Contemporary Fine Arts in Berlin.
Cemal Eker’s hyperdetailed, mythical drawings carry a supernatural energy. Using both stippling and bold linework, the artist crafts absorbing scenes, worthy of close inspection. And at times, Eker also uses digital techniques to add yet another surreal flourish to the works.
Nicola Caredda’s dreamlike acrylic paintings blend eroded landscapes and structures, playful bits of pop culture and mystical iconography. Each’s vague narrative appears to be ripped from the subconscious.
Mr. Everybody’s paintings offer a clash of bleak imagery and playful vibrancy. The works, often minimalist in execution, tell of both street art and classical influences, with elegant figures and pop culture iconography playing a role. The artist's own practice feels at home on both a gallery wall and a public wall.
In Niko Photographisme's "The Robot Next Door" series, the artist depicts a world in which robotic creatures are among us. Blending analog materials with a bit of digital manipulation to create a surreal final product, the artist is able to create an intimate view of a sci-fi scenario. Depicting the figures taking part in everyday activities, the pieces carry a surprising vulnerability to match the futuristic concept.
The oil paintings of Lukifer Aurelius carry a surreal and mystic energy, its subjects often in a transformative state. The Brisbane artist is part of a new duo show with Alex Garant at BeinArt Gallery in Australia titled "Seeing Between," running through May 27. The gallery says that the painter’s figures are “seemingly infused with fire or, at the very least, embers, striking a chord with perhaps our most primitive memories.”
Linsey Levendall draws and paints surreal scenes ripped from the subconscious, his figures containing worlds within. The artist uses a variety of approaches in his dreamlike drawings and paintings, moving between precise linework and chaotic, yet controlled strokes.
Ban Ban 1194’s stirring illustrations offer massive mythological integrated into the landscape. The artist effectively adds a pops of red hues, often solely represented by solitary human-sized figures, in the series "Double happiness.” The poetic works are offered accompanying text with a similar tone, in this case: "The hut provided a shelter from the storm."
The whimsical, surreal oil paintings of Thomas Ascott use the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee as a backdrop, where the artist himself was raised. This creates a highly personal aspect to these works, part of a new show at Arch Enemy Arts titled “The Astral Woods.”
With that signature, enormous red-gummed mouth, a piece by U.K. illustrator Lumps is easy to spot in both its inventiveness and eccentricity. Lumps is the working name of artist Sam Drew, who balances both a personal and commercial practice with his recognizable style. With his involvement, an everyday object can come alive with a mischievous set of chompers or a fantastical machine can be examined.
Jon Fox’s works are overflowing with varied influences and motifs, packed with explorations of identity and contemporary pressures. The existential quality of these acrylic and oil paintings extends out from these otherworldly characters and into the viewer. The artist says that "if you go far enough inside yourself as an individual, you reach a universal space that we all share and are connected to." Fox was last mentioned on HiFructose.com here.
Thomas Gieseke’s surreal paintings are packed with vibrant and playful imagery, often with a sardonic edge. His works often feature lush backgrounds and creatures from the animal kingdom with flashes of the Western World. Works like "The Extrovert Leaves the Introvert to His Own Devices" show a cynicism and humor toward contemporary attitudes.
Jacob Brostrup’s oil paintings overlay backdrops and scenes, creating dreamlike journeys into the subconscious. Figures and the natural world blend with both unruliness and precision, carefully crafted works that make use of the artist’s talents with color and depth.
Mark Gleason’s new stirring, dreamlike oil paintings explore nocturnal and psychological themes. In a new show at La Luz De Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles, titled "Sleepless," the painter offers a new series of works that explore both broad and personal themes for the artist. The artist was last featured on HiFructose.com here.
Romain Laurent's surreal photography mixes humor and disconcerting scenes, whether its his strange "Inner Dialogue" series or his subtly animated "One Loop Portraits." The artist has both personal and commercial practices. Laurent hails from France but is currently based in New York City.