Poor Little Dears: The Sinister and Mysterious Childhood Depictions of Hikari Shimoda
Hikari Shimoda‘s creepy paintings of children depict them as sweet, sinister, wounded and abused. The eerie mouths, asymmetrical, strange little faces and one-eyed appearance (often one milky eye, one bruised and bloody-looking) of these alien but painfully familiar little beings, rendered in bright or pastel, almost child-friendly, but also quite subtly mixed and profound, colors, all serve to give a creeping sense of the corruption of innocent childhood, an inversion of the saccharine bliss associated with little children.
As Shimoda explains in her artist’s statement, “Contrasting with my daily cheerful demeanor, my unexpressed emotions accumulate inside of me. I feel like an outsider, isolated, lost, and have a hard time building relationships with others, but I never give up being part of the world. The secret to survival? Observe, feel, and listen to yourself. I stand in front of my canvas and confront it, releasing all the built-up unverbalized emotions, the chaos, and the unnoticeable darkness. Even though I know my contrasting side will be shone in the light with no place to hide, I paint to live and to be connected in this world. I accept and understand myself more through my artistic processes than anything else. As I know myself more, I can see others better.
My motif is mainly children. They are nobody, and yet, they could be somebody. They could be me as a small child, or they could be somebody’s inner child. Children, as ambiguous of an existence as they are, reflect my personal world and the universal problems that society today has.”
Tags: bandages, bizarre, bruises, children, colorful, cute n creepy little creatures, distorted bodies, dollflesh, injuries, innocence/menace, lolita-esque, mute, neo-victorian, pastel, surreal, twins/doppelgangers/doubles, unnaturally colored flesh, wound
Satanic Reveries: Paintings by David Stoupakis
David Stoupakis’ meticulously crafted, realistically rendered, colorful paintings contrast innocence with sin and corruption, and are reminiscent of medieval religious paintings, inverting that religiosity with a sinister perspective. His work reflects the influence of past, traditional art, evoking an almost classic sense of harmony, in the way that the paintings are composed and the backgrounds are rendered, and his subjects are also drawn from the Victorian era.
In my very humble opinion, Catholicism is the sexiest of the major religions, with the most striking visceral/visual impact, and Stoupakis uses his subversion of that element to create a sense of enthrallment and delight in his self-contained, perfectly framed paintings filled with symbolic objects and done in bold colors.
Tags: apples, children, classicism, cryptic, david stoupakis, innocence/menace, modern fairy tales, neo-victorian, pop surrealism, religious imagery, symbolism, twins/doppelgangers/doubles
Preternaturally Beautiful Horror Photography by Jenn Violetta
Visit Jenn Violetta on Flickr for more of her wonderful photography.
Tags: abuse, blood, bruises, children, colorful, emotive, flour-white face, hauntingly beautiful, horror photography, injuries, innocence, jenn violetta, medical-themed, military-themed, otherworldly photography, photomanipulation, political, surreal, trauma, violence
Beauty in the Slaughter: The Art of James Jean
James Jean is a Los Angeles-based artist and illustrator. His brand of colorful, macabre, and wacky surrealism contains elements from mythology, Asian art, and anatomical illustrations; childhood, sexuality, and transformation are common themes. His style is fluid and graceful, often using soft colors that make the nightmares and scenes of grisly slaughter strangely friendly.
Tags: anatomical-themed, animals, children, illustrations, james jean, modern fairy tales, pastel, pop surrealism, soft color
Rotten Little Darlings: The Art of Zhang Peng
Zhang Peng creates creepy and lush photomanipulations of doll-like little girls, each of which portrays a perverted, twisted innocence as the subjects are caught in the midst of acts of violence – still lifes with a quietly macabre quality. These images seem, to me, to make a statement about the role of innocence in contemporary Chinese culture, the odd midway that women occupy between child and object, and the shrine of youth, subverted and corrupted.
Tags: bathtubs, children, dolls, innocence/menace, pop surrealism, red and white, roses, zhang peng
Injured Children: The Art of Gottfried Helnwein
You probably thought this was a photograph when you first saw it (I definitely did); but it’s not. It’s an amazing painting by the renowned artist Gottfried Helnwein. His paintings are unbelievably photorealistic, and they often feature disturbing and provocative representations of children who are bloodied and injured, bandages wrapped around their heads: an allegory for innocence and trauma, emotional injury, the consequences of violence, abuse, and other scarring forces out in the world.
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