Jana Brike’s “The Book of Taboo”
Jana Brike currently has a solo exhibit at ArtHatch in Escondido, California. Titled The Book of Taboo, this lush white-dominated, pink-tinged series focuses on prepubescent, androgynous girls and boys with milk-white skin and cherubic features, and portrays the theme of (yep, you guessed it) corrupted innocence. Lurid and twisted sexuality, eerie and sinister surreal imagery combined with the sweetness and purity of the diminutive figures, gambol and play in these portraits of children suspended somewhere between childhood and adolescence, between innocence and depraved malice. Jana Brike explains the influences behind these paintings here.
Tags: children, dollflesh, innocence/menace, jana brike, lolitaism, pop surrealism, sexuality, white
Lori Earley
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.”
Tags: alien beauty, distorted bodies, doll-like, emotive, enlarged eyes, expressive, hauntingly beautiful, lori earley, neo-victorian, pop surrealism, portraits, realism, sweet/melancholy, virtuoso
Sas + Colin: Colin Christian
Colin Christian makes larger-than-life sculptures of space-girls, aliens, and femme fatale creatures, in a style I dub cyber retro-erotic which takes influence from many different subcultures. Statuesque and cast in fiberglass and silicone, these cartoonishly exaggerated, indomitably perfect figures with piercing, gigantic, pellucid eyes, featuring campy titles such as Adventures on Planet Freud and The Callgirl of Cthulhu, are a sort of oddball mixture of his diverse inspirations, including “old sci-fi movies, pinup girls/supermodels, anime,” and “H. P. Lovecraft.” I find some of his work to be not to my taste, bordering on obscene or downright creepy (not to say disturbing), but these pieces below I do like. Also check out Sas’ art in the previous post.
Tags: alien beauty, bizarre, cartoony, cyber aesthetic, distorted bodies, doll-like, enlarged eyes, erotic, fetish, futuristic, life-sized, lolita-esque, monsteresque, pinup, pop surrealism, realism, retro, sci-fi, sculptures, sinister arts and crafts, space girls, strange beauty
Sas + Colin: Sas Christian
Sas Christian is a painter of portraits of women who are beautiful but also just a bit dangerous or deadly, with their unsettling gaze, focusing unnaturally enlarged, glassy eyes, which are her trademark, on the viewer. Sas is often referred to in conjunction with her husband and fellow artist, Colin Christian (who I will do a post on a bit later). Sas + Colin are an electric duo in the contemporary art scene. Their art shares many similarities, with related themes running through it, but also differs quite dramatically. Below is a sample of Sas’ work.
Tags: enlarged eyes, expressive, innocence/menace, medical-themed, nurse, photorealism, pop surrealism, portraits, strange beauty
Eye-Love [007]
Photographed by Ben Hassett for Vogue Paris February 2008 {scan by Céline M.}Tags: avant-garde goth, bandages, cute/creepy little girls, dollflesh, fashion editorial, heart, high fashion, joao ruas, lost fish, medical-themed, pop surrealism, queens, self-portraits, white hair
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
Darling Mutants: The Art of Karolin Felix
Karolin Felix is a Dublin-based artist who creates sweet, pretty, sensual, pastel-colored digital paintings featuring dainty women, often mutated or in some way deviating from the physically normal but delicately beautiful, with just an edge of evil or menace flickering like a tongue around them.
Tags: candy-coated deformity, innocence/menace, lolitaism, neo-victorian, nouveau circus aesthetic, pastel, pop surrealism, sweet/melancholy
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
Brandt Peters + Kathie Olivas
via Circus Posterus
Tags: alice in wonderland, animals, cute n creepy little creatures, pop surrealism
Upcoming Event: The Mad Potters Tea Party
On Friday, February 4th, the Strychnin Gallery in Berlin, in collaboration with innovative ceramics company The New English, brings you an amazing and unique show, The Mad Potters Tea Party, the likes of which you’ve never seen.
The show features the work of over a hundred luminary artists in the contemporary art world, including Ray Caesar, David Stoupakis, Caitlin Hackett, Camilla d’Errico, Annie Bertram, Saturno Butto, and many more. Artists will present their own individual designs on plates, teacups, pots, and other ceramic items, turning these high-quality craft objects into one-of-a-kind and smashable pieces of art.
Awesome artist designs on ceramic-ware? Porcelain plates and fragile teacups dripping with quirky and decadent art? Sounds like an amazing combo. Everything I’ve seen so far promises a thrilling, delightful, and unique visual experience. “Cupcakes, tea, and magic” are also promised! The show will run until March 8th.
Other art-ceramics posts:
+ Coilhouse Plates
+ Fine China Autopsy ArtTags: art shows, ceramics, pop surrealism, porcelain, sinister arts and crafts, teacups
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