Surrealism

     THIS THREAD IS ON SURREALISM, MY STYLE

I am fascinated with surrealism. It was a French art movement that began in the 1920s as a spin-off from DADAism and Expressionism. It was supposed to be a manifestation of the unconscious mind, a collection of things that do not seem to rationally go together. Altho most people recognize Dali as the greatest surrealist, his very early work seems to be closer to the surrealistic ideal. My favorite surrealist is Magritte.

I've played with the concept off and on for a few years. I am posting some paintings that I believe capture my view of surrealism. I'll try to explain as I post them.

Almost all are 12 x 16 acrylics on canvas panels.

SOCCER MOM

This is one of my first attempts

There are five elements that I have tried to include in each painting - A ship, a creature, landscape, a building, a human (nude?), and a section of a well-known painting. So here we have a ship, two crabs, mount fuji, the Pisa tower, a nude, a castle as a kite, and way in the back a wagon from a famous painting

[I offered this one to a local art show but

they rejected it - the nude, they said!]

SPIDER LADY

This is also an early attempt

A trantula, a street scene from Kent England, a lighthouse, a ship, and a horserace from a famous painting (Oh, and on this one, I've included fire!)

Some News! SPIDER LADY won 2nd prize against dozens of professional artists in an area-wide PAVA art show on 27 Sep 2012!

This is gonna re-inspire me to do some more

X

So why is the caption on this one 'X'?

The semaphore flag held by the person on the hill is X

Camels, a beached ship, castle ruins, a burning bush, and nudes

KONG

So far, this is my favorite

Twin towers on fire, King Kong, a sailboat, a moth as a kite, a nude statue, and a nude at the base of the statue

FROGS

Had some fits with this one

It's somewhat based on a Magritte, where the painting melds into the view being painted (or is the view a painting?). We have a couple of painted frogs, some nudes, sail boats, and a balloon on fire

GARGOYLE

This deviates from the conventional surrealism into fantasy but I include it here 'cause it don't fit anywhere else!

A WOMAN'S TOUCH

Allegorical, I guess.

The stone statue turns to flesh

while the woman turns to stone

Okay, you ask, what's the above painting all about?

Well, there's a movement underway called

STEAMPUNK

It essentially combines 19th century mechanical

things with people [Go look it up, okay?]

So the guy and the boiler above represents

the STEAM part of STEAMPUNK

Bits and pieces of this will be overpainted to include

the PUNK part of STEAMPUNK

Okay, below is the painted over version of the above painting. I have now PUNK'd it

If you look carefully, you will see that the guy now wears goggles and an apparatus that covers his ear

Furthermore, he's wearing power arm sleeves and his wrench now has a hand guard and a torque meter

Steam has been added for effect only!