Synesthesia Garden
< a weird art + style blog >

Dear readers and connoisseurs of the bizarrely beautiful, welcome to   SYNESTHESIA GARDEN.
Here you will find paeans to all varieties of dark, surreal, odd, and provocative contemporary art, style, and creativity.

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Latest Posts

  • Alice Auaa A/W 2013
  • Kingdoms of Twilight & Magic @ Strychnin Gallery
  • “To the Center Within (I)” – Eden Nova
  • The Alternative Limb Project
  • “Lined in Lead” at Gallery Nucleus

Blogroll

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  • Blood Milk
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Archives

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  • June 2012
  •    See full archives
  • Danny van Ryswyk

    07.23.12

    Amsterdam-based artist Danny van Ryswyk creates strange, surreal artwork that evokes a sense of eerie melancholy, Victorian portraiture, and monstrous absurdity, using 3D technology.

    Related posts:
    Precious Creatures: The Art of Ray Caesar
    Beautiful Imaginary Portraits by Travis Louie

    Tags: black-and-white portraits, dark, eerie, hauntingly beautiful, masks, monsteresque, neo-victorian, portraits, realism, twins, victorian

    No Comments »  

  • Chrystal Chan

    02.26.12

    See more after the cut

    Tags: animals, dark fairy tales, deer, illustrations, innocence/menace, modern fairy tales, neo-victorian, pop surrealism, realism, symbolism

    No Comments »  

  • Hell House: The Art of Esao Andrews

    01.23.12

    Esao Andrews combines a colorful palette with a Gothic sensibility. Some of his paintings are twists on traditional portraits from earlier epochs akin to the work of Nicola Samorì. Wildly dilapidated and foreboding houses are a recurring motif, and, reminiscent of Shirley Jackson‘s psychological horror stories, depict the inner, psychical falling apart, decay, distortion, and warping. Fairy tales and folklore, including Pinocchio and Thumbelina, loom in the forefront with menacing or perverted appeal. In some works, his vibrant style illustrates the bizarre, the obscene, and aberrations, contrasting atrocious or monstrous things such as a giant, bloated black spider with a symbol of sweetness, purity, and elevation such as a child or an angel. Some of his illustrations are cartoonish, charmingly retro, with a dark, whimsical sense of humor, while others are realistically rendered and Dali-esque, while yet others are macabre and lovelorn, bloody tale-telling depictions.

    See more after the cut

    Tags: (twists on) traditional art, dark, illustrations, innocence/menace, macabre, modern fairy tales, monsteresque, neo-victorian, pop surrealism, portraits, realism, religious imagery, spiders, surreal, symbolism, victorian

    No Comments »  

  • Mia Calderone

    12.28.11

    Ghostly, sinuous, beautifully illustrated apparitions with elongated, eerie, torturously expressive wraith-like hands figure prominently in Mia Calderone‘s exquisite and highly personal ink drawings. Her influences and inspirations include Catholicism, medieval illuminated Bibles, Art Nouveau (particularly Alphonse Mucha and Aubrey Beardsley), and contemporary artists Takato Yamamoto and Laura Laine.

    See more after the cut

    Tags: articulate hands, black and white, dark fairy tales, emotive, exposed anatomy, expressive, femininity, flowers in hair, ghostly, hair, inky, intricate line drawings, neo-victorian, sexuality, twins/doppelgangers/doubles, victorian

    4 Comments »  

  • A is for Arsenic: Taxidermia

    12.18.11

    Taxidermia is the new jewelry + apparel collection from Amelia Arsenic/Destroyx‘s brand A is for Arsenic. The black+white-color-themed collection features laser-cut perspex jewelry designs and T-shirts & tanks inspired by taxidermy motifs, Victorian memento mori imagery, and vanitas artwork. The photography below was shot by Melissa Jenkins, with art direction & styling by Amelia Arsenic. See the complete collection here.

    {Taxidermia: a graphic world of dark Victoriana, memento mori and macabre taxidermy. Featuring vicious yet elegant designs with a nod to the past, Taxidermia is a thoroughly contemporary art jewellery and apparel collection created and constructed in London.}

    See more after the cut

    Tags: amelia arsenic, animals, antlers, avant-garde goth, black and white, bugs, deer, destroyx, jewelry, macabre, neo-victorian, spooky animal-themed jewelry, taxidermy

    No Comments »  

  • Lost Fish’s Alice

    09.24.11

    These beautiful images are from the book Alice, à travers le miroir, a French edition of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There illustrated by Lost Fish (see my previous post on her).

    See more after the cut

    Tags: (twists on) traditional art, alice in wonderland, children, cute little girls, dollflesh, fragility, historically inspired, illustrations, innocence/menace, lolita-esque, lost fish, neo-victorian, pop surrealism, porcelain, precious, queens, red and white, surreal, sweet/melancholy

    No Comments »  

  • Roses and Thorns: The Art of Liza Corbett

    09.10.11

    See more after the cut

    Tags: animals, art shows, baroque, bird wings, branches, deer, dolls, fairy tales, flowers, flowers in hair, ghosts, greek mythology, hair, historically inspired, illustrations, intricate line drawings, jeremy hush, little red riding hood, liza corbett, macabre, nature, neo-victorian, red, roses, skulls, soft color, surreal, swan, victorian, wolves

    2 Comments »  

  • Neo-Victorianism + Japanese Inspiration + Consumer Whoredom: The Art of Alex Gross

    06.12.11

    The Victorian era, traditional Japanese art and contemporary Japanese pop culture, super-consumer culture, mid-century America, classic Christian iconography, poster art, ironic/mystical symbolism, and ice cream cones all mix together in Alex Gross’ bright, colorful brand of Pop Surrealism.

    See more after the cut

    Tags: (twists on) traditional art, 1950s, animals, classic hollywood, colorful, consumerism, edo-period japan, geisha-inspired, neo-victorian, nurse, pop surrealism, religious imagery, retro, symbolism, victorian

    No Comments »  

  • Another trailer for Alice: Madness Returns

    06.12.11

    Here is a trailer, featuring gameplay, for Alice: Madness Returns, which was released earlier this month (making it the fifth and final trailer).

    Alice: Madness Returns is released in the U.S. on June 14, and in Europe on June 16, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.

    I’m so looking forward to this!

    Tags: alice in wonderland, american mcgee, colorful, cute n creepy little creatures, dark fairy tales, dreamscapes, gloomy color schemes, hauntingly beautiful, horror video games, innocence/menace, insane asylum aesthetic, insanity, madness, neo-victorian, psychological horror, surreal, trailers, victorian

    No Comments »  

  • Lori Earley

    05.01.11

    Lori Earley was one of the very first artists I discovered when I was getting into Pop Surrealism years ago, so it seems fitting that I do a post on her sometime. Earley has been exhibiting her distinctive, hyperrealistic, haunting portraits of women since 2004. The “distorted realism” of these paintings gives them a poignant beauty. They portray otherworldly female subjects, sharply yet delicately delineating their slightly alien features and capturing their expressions with incredible detail. As her Website bio aptly puts it, “While her femme fatale portraits mature in style and intensity, they retain her signature ethereal quality that embodies an undeniably feminine force.”

    See more after the cut

    Tags: alien beauty, distorted bodies, doll-like, emotive, enlarged eyes, expressive, hauntingly beautiful, lori earley, neo-victorian, pop surrealism, portraits, realism, sweet/melancholy, virtuoso

    1 Comment »  

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“Creativity is the only relative freedom we have in this world.”  — Vania Zouravliov