Unbearably Cute, Sweet, and Slightly Odd: The Art of Dilka Bear
Tags: animals, cute/creepy little girls, doll-like, fairy tales, historically inspired, pop surrealism, queens, sweet/melancholy, twins/doppelgangers/doubles, white hair
Nicola Samorì
Nicola Samorì‘s beautiful, technically accomplished, dark-palette paintings are distorted renditions of Baroque works, giving new life to an old style. Her “Neo-Baroque” art is “aggressively overwhelming and beautiful.” Often the faces of the figures in these paintings are obscured with a surreal, milky veil or a tempestuous, boldly structured smear of gray.
Tags: (twists on) traditional art, baroque, classicism, dark ethereal, flour-white flesh, gloomy color schemes, hauntingly beautiful, historically inspired, neo-baroque, realism, virtuoso
Ray Caesar – “A Gentle Kind of Cruelty”
Ray Caesar (see my previous post on him here) is currently exhibiting a solo show at Jonathan LeVine Gallery, entitled A Gentle Kind of Cruelty.
Images from the show below via Blood Milk, Hi-Fructose, and Arrested Motion. I love the beautiful detail shots taken by JL Schnabel of Blood Milk, which show the true marvelousness and beauty of Caesar’s work as it would appear close-up in person.
Tags: 1940s, 1950s, art shows, colorful, cute/creepy little girls, doll-like, dollflesh, femininity, hauntingly beautiful, historically inspired, innocence/menace, interiors, lolita-esque, monsteresque, neo-victorian, pop surrealism, ray caesar, retro, sexuality, victorian
Through a Veil Darkly: the Art of Bernd Preiml
Tags: bernd preiml, conceptual, fashion photography, gloomy color schemes, historically inspired, modern fairy tales, neo-victorian, otherworldly photography, photomanipulation, retro, surreal, victorian
CocoRosie – Gallows
This is the lovely video for the song “Gallows” by the band CocoRosie. Now one of my favorite music videos.
If you like this, also check out their video for “Lemonade.”
The sisters CocoRosieTags: animals, cocorosie, hauntingly beautiful, historically inspired, music videos, neo-victorian, twins/doppelgangers/doubles, victorian, victorian mourning attire
Una Burke’s Medical Armor
I’m probably the last person to blog about this since it’s made the blogosphere rounds, but I thought I would anyway, just for the record. This is Una Burke‘s “medical armor,” a conceptual collection of artwear inspired by prosthetic devices and medical braces and the process of healing from trauma, titled Re.Treat. The warrior-like body armor is reminiscent of medical corsetry, and also of wearing human flesh as a shield against psychological harm. The means of protection also become a means of entrapment, binding the body tightly. She cites a few of her influences as Hans Bellmer, Alexander McQueen, and Erwin Olaf. On her Website she states the pieces were made from “undyed vegetable-tanned leather which is reminiscent of Caucasian flesh” – I couldn’t help finding that last part a little funny.
Tags: avant-garde, collars, corsetry, erwin olaf, fetish, hans bellmer, historically inspired, medical braces, medical-themed, sinister arts and crafts, trauma, una burke
J-Chan’s Designs
Jessica of J-Chan’s Designs is a wildly imaginative, out-of-this-world stylist, costume designer, and makeup artist. She is also the founder and editor in chief of recently launched Giuseppina Magazine.
Vivid, manic, bipolar, brave colors and contrasting, rougher vs. delicate textures characterize her fashion creations. The makeup is fittingly bold and insanely colorful. The styling is what really draws me to these designs, often adding a rare beauty to them. It can be a bit gritty and over-the-top, or more elegant and subdued, in muted colors. Elaborate, innovative, often wildly colorful makeup and huge hair/headdresses with lots of ornament and accessory are a common element, and complement the crazed fairytale aesthetic of the outfits. Though it can be wacky and almost overwhelmingly cluttered, a color-explosion chaos to the eye, it is always interesting.
Tags: amazing makeup, collars, colorful, hair, historically inspired, j-chan's designs, lacy, otherworldly photography, ruffs
Royal Fairy Tales and Frail Dolls
Lily Bloodstained AKA Mon-artifice is an amazing young photographer who does the most fantastic self-portraiture. In her richly dark imagery, she takes on the personae of tragic and baroque, 18th-century aristocrats and the like, in flour-white makeup elaborated with ink ornamentation, and half-masks, often with the theme of mirroring, fragmented, or double images. Expressive, dark, and endlessly creative, she is a true inspiration. She embodies a sense of nostalgic melancholy, and her work, though deeply emotional, is always subtle and has a certain elegant quality. Here is some of her work below. I like so many of her images that it was hard to pick!
Lily Bloodstained on DeviantArt
on Flickr
on Darkfolio
on Dirty Angels
Tags: 18th century, baroque, historically inspired, lily bloodstained, masks, otherworldly photography, self-portraits
Precious Creatures: The Art of Ray Caesar
Ray Caesar is one of those artists in the Pop Surreal Movement whose work I’ve seen around for years and years. His medium is quite unique: 3D modeling. And if I were to sum up his subject matter in a few words, I would say something like subverted Victorian morals. His works most often feature young, prepubescent girls, often sexualized, deformed, outfitted with sea-monster tentacles, and in other ways altered from reality. The fetish Batgirl-esque mask is ever present. Women peer from behind fans in Marie Antoinette-style costume, hold parasols in Victorian garb, and sport ’50s-style flip haircuts. His worlds are bright and colorful, the girls vaguely menacing. Macabre and eerie, the works are set in the midst of delicately colored, floral Victorian wallpaper and lush, feminine interiors; the girls are surrounded by objects of taming and domesticity, but they show their teeth and their sinister side.
From Jonathan Levine Gallery Online:
“Working for 17 years in the Art and Photography Department of The Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto, Ray Caesar documented things such as child abuse, surgical reconstruction, psychology, and animal research.Using a 3D modeling software called Maya, he builds models and wraps them in painted and manipulated texture maps. The models are set up with an invisible skeleton that allows him to pose each figure in a 3D environment. Digital lights and cameras are added to simulate shadows and reflections, completing the effect of a mysterious and strange alternate world.”
Some of my favorites of his works:
Tags: fetish, historically inspired, innocence/menace, pop surrealism, ray caesar, victorian
Eugenio Recuenco
Check out Eugenio Recuenco’s photographic scenery. Inspired by medieval torture chambers, WWI hospitals, Greek art, the Titanic, Beauty and the Beast, Hitchcock movies, The Shining, futuristic androids, and basically all shapes and manners of stories, his scenes are endlessly creative and varied.
Tags: eugenio recuenco, high fashion, historically inspired, photoessay, polyptych
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