Alex CF’s Mythical and Nightmare Specimens
Alex CF painstakingly creates these cryptozoological specimens encased in bell jars and elaborate, gorgeous display cabinets replete with the paraphernalia, notes, and mementos of the scientific ventures that captured these exquisite specimens. He almost creates complete miniature scenes around the specimens: there are reliquaries, study cases, vampire slaying kits, portable bio-aetheric animation laboratories, coffers, and sarcophagi. The specimens are drawn from literary works, including Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Dante’s Inferno, H. G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, H. P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness and Chthulhu Mythos, as well as folklore and legend. The array of allusions to classical eerie fiction is delightful.
He reimagines and renders these cryptic, bizarre, mythical creatures and beings, sirens, faeries, mutants, succubi, devilspawn, atrocities against nature, resulting in specimens that are disturbingly lifelike and real enough to touch. They are repulsive and yet alluringly detailed. The displays also come with beautifully drawn illustrations, which are as fascinating as the specimens themselves.
Tags: alice in wonderland, anatomical illustrations, anatomical-themed, artifacts of the past, autopsy, babies, bizarre, chthulhu, corpses, creature, creepy, cryptid, cryptozoology, eerie, exposed anatomy, fairies, fairy tales, fleshy, gory, grotesque, hunter/hunted, illustrations, macabre, monsteresque, mythos, natural history, religious imagery, sculptures, sideshows, sinister arts and crafts, taxidermy, vampires, vials, victorian, vintage, visceral, vivisected, weird science projects
The Trembling Fires of Dreams: An Installation
In contrast to the last “deer-related” post, this is an intriguing installation artwork by Gene Guynn, titled The Trembling Fires of Dreams, which is made from resin, enamel, and yarn, and depicts a lying white deer being circled by two black jackals. The deer has a triangle opening painted on its side, seeming to indicate a kind of vivisection, the exposure of the deer’s internals, with multicolored strands of yarn stretching up and outwards, and also pinning the deer down to the ground on either side. The jackals are attached to all black, frayed strings.
Tags: animals, black and white, deer, installation art, strings, twins/doppelgangers/doubles, vivisected
Anatomy of Heaven: Dino Valls
Dino Valls is a Spanish painter of exquisite, piercing surreal works which explore the human body as representative of the psyche, medical analogies, religious imagery, and sexuality. Beautiful and photorealistic, his paintings have a sense of classicism and an incredible technical virtuosity that will blow you away.
The figures often have a beautiful, heavenly cast to their faces, reminiscent of classics by old masters and medieval religious paintings. In these beautiful and disturbing works, the body is portrayed as fragmented, segmented, doubled, vivisected, deformed, and androgynous – both oddity and sacrosanct vessel. Body parts are displaced and represent the damaged state of the whole person. Scores of needles adorn the figures.
These images illustrate powerful statements about the way that the modern body is invaded, pried into, operated upon, examined, measured, and manipulated, making a commentary on the impersonal, objectifying treatment of modern medicine. There is often a disembodied hand taking hold of the subject in a possessive way, evoking the cold, clinical, authoritative touch of doctors, with sexual and sinister overtones. The surgery they perform on the people is symbolic and laden with dark meanings.
I love the genius way in which Valls uses anatomical symbolism and naked, human vulnerability to create such powerful, resonant images, and the way that he both perverts and glorifies the human form and human spirit.
Lots and lots of pictures below.
Tags: anatomical-themed, art nudes, classicism, medical-themed, religious imagery, twins/doppelgangers/doubles, vivisected
Sinister Forest: The Art of DeerlyDeparted
DeerlyDeparted on deviantART is a talented young artist with a unique style and a vision revolving around the woods. Working in watercolors and sketches, she portrays surreal scenes of the forest, combining victimized/eerie female figures, animals (or animal skulls), “exposed anatomy,” and macabre themes in a way that’s similar to Nomi Chi. These nightmarish landscapes, crammed with symbolic morbid imagery, I find charming and fascinating, and I hope to see more from this artist in the future.
Tags: anatomical-themed, animal skulls, animals, apples, deer, innocence, modern fairy tales, surreal, vivisected, wolves, woods
Wabbit
Check out this amazing street art by Roa that changes depending on what angle you’re looking at it from:
I have a sort of thing for stylized, whimsical, skinned/medical/anatomical-themed rabbits, so I really like this.
Tags: animals, evisceration, medical-themed, rabbits, street art, vivisected
Nomi Chi – Mystical, Creepy, and Perverse
Nomi Chi is a talented artist/tattooist out of Vancouver, B.C. Her work combines female and animal figures in a bizarre, sinuous, whimsical, and wispy luxurious style. Animal skulls, eviscerated furry creatures, and surreal woman/animal combinations are dominant themes. Languorous, morbidly lovely and erotic, sometimes tender, her sketches and paintings are both casual and mythical, and creepily delicious. Here’s a selection of her art:
I have this hanging up as a print on the wall of my bedroom.
Tags: animals, evisceration, nomi chi, rabbits, skulls, surreal, vivisected
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