In a landscape dominated by hyper-realistic renders and glossy digital imagery, the work of Jacob Holster offers a refreshing counterpoint. Operating under the Instagram handle @bandyquantguy, Holster has established a distinctive artistic voice that bridges scholarly inquiry with visual experimentation.

Holster serves as an Assistant Teaching Professor of Music Education at Penn State University, where his research examines the convergence of artificial intelligence, pedagogy, and creative practice. This academic foundation informs his parallel work as an AI artist and filmmaker, lending his projects a conceptual depth that distinguishes them from purely aesthetic exercises.

His recent work, including the AI short film Art Is Human Terrain, exemplifies his signature approach: warm, textured visuals that evoke the tactile qualities of traditional oil painting rather than the clinical precision often associated with generative media. The result is work that feels deliberately humanistic: technology employed not as a replacement for artistic sensibility, but as a medium through which to explore new dimensions of texture, sound, and narrative.

Where to Explore His Work:

• Instagram: @bandyquantguy
• YouTube: @bandyquantguy

Social media influencers dominate the digital landscape with carefully curated shots and perfectly posed selfies. This artist is turning this modern phenomenon on its head by reimagining some of history’s most iconic artworks through a contemporary lens.

Meet UntitledSave, a digital collage artist from Porto, Portugal, who’s bridging the gap between classical art and modern social media culture. Through their innovative digital recreations, timeless masterpieces are transformed into what they might look like if their subjects were contemporary influencers.

The Art of Digital Transformation

UntitledSave’s work poses an intriguing question: What if the subjects of classical paintings had Instagram accounts? The results are both thought-provoking and surprisingly natural. Frida Kahlo becomes a self-aware selfie queen, while the enigmatic Mona Lisa transforms into a lifestyle blogger with that same mysterious smile we’ve wondered about for centuries.

These recreations do more than simply modernize classical works—they offer commentary on how self-presentation and artistic expression have evolved in the digital age. The artist cleverly maintains the essence of each original masterpiece while incorporating modern elements that feel surprisingly authentic to both time periods.

Notable Transformations Include:

• Frida Kahlo reimagined as a modern-day self-portrait artist and body positivity advocate
• The Mona Lisa as a lifestyle influencer, complete with subtle product placement
• Venus de Milo transformed into a fitness influencer
• Girl with a Pearl Earring as a jewelry and fashion blogger

The Untitled.Save Interview

What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Cyclist

What’s your background?
I attended a hairdressing course and have a degree in Product Design

What piece are you most proud of?
The one I’m yet to create

What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
“Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today” (I rarely follow this advice)

What is one thing they tried to teach you in school that you knew immediately was wrong?
We all have the same rights

Who is the one person, dead or alive, that you would like to have dinner with and why?
I would love to have dinner with the artist JR at the yellow house in Brazil

Where is your favorite place?
It’s always wherever I’m not

Who are your biggest influences?
Salvador Dalí and Rui Reininho

Which current art world trends are you following?
I’m paying close attention to AI developments. I’ve tried it, but I haven’t yet found a personal identity in it, which is why I’ve never published anything

What can’t you live without?
Music

What is your dream project?
To have an exhibition or project in Portugal. So far, the opportunities I’ve had have always been abroad

What’s your favorite artwork?
It’s hard to pick just one, but for many months now, I’ve had Albrecht Dürer’s Praying Hands painting on the screen of my phone

What is currently on your playlist?
Vacances, L’Impératrice
Acorda, Cristina Massena
Sacatela, La Femme

What are your last three Google searches?
I don’t want to destroy my reputation haha

What gives you life?
Music

What is your superpower?
Knowing how to say no

What is your Kryptonite?
What’s that?

If you could visit any artist’s studio, whose would you visit and why?
Iryna Maksymova. In the midst of the war in Ukraine, she didn’t leave the country and continues to bring a little light to the world with her art

What ideas are you currently pondering or questioning?
How can the human race be so beautiful and twisted at the same time?

What do most people believe that you do not?
Zodiac signs

What is your favorite thing in the world?
Bacalhau à Brás

If you could collaborate with anyone, who would it be, and why?
Banksy. Because of the anonymity of that collaboration

What’s next for you?
Dinner

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Where to find, follow, and collect:

Marisa lost herself in countless hours reading various thoughts and theories, dabbled in energy healing work, and discovered the unexpected in meditation. In the end, she came to recognize that these new horizons unveiled limitless possibilities across time and space.

The repeated use of clouds and the infinite landscape serve as metaphors for the unknown. Marisa manipulates perspectives and scale to blur reality and touch upon concepts beyond this three-dimensional world, but with the intent of imparting a sense of peace and calm.

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Bringing vibrant color to quite bleak subjects, Zubieta explores the millennial culture and its issues through pink-tinted glasses, neon colors, and dreamy characters. Zubieta found in Alice the perfect metaphor to explore the reality she was living in during the outburst of Covid-19.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland represents the child’s struggle to survive in the confusing world of adults. To understand our adult world, Alice has to overcome the open-mindedness that is characteristic of children. Apparently, adults need rules to live by. Going down the rabbit hole: in the book is a representation of going into the unconscious, connected with lockdown, Covid-19 seems to be the hole that has trapped us all at home, forcing us to deal with our inner monsters but also with the voice we listen to the most; the mass media.

Interview with Pop-Surrealist Marta Zubieta

Q. What did you want to be when you were growing up?
A. I wanted to be a veterinarian until the age of 10, then I brought my cat to be castrated and everything changed.

Q. What’s your background?
A. I studied fine arts in Sevilla, Spain, but I didn’t make the most of it or I didn’t know how I could ever get “real work” out of it so I started studying graphic design alongside. 
Before I moved to Bristol I was a poor long-time intern graphic designer during the day and session singer at night. Once in Bristol, with my “Spanglish” it was hard (impossible) to find a job in the design industry. I worked in hospitality for a long period while playing music and just trying to do illustration for fun, I even stopped painting for a while. But I think all that working at night, the music, the street art, and the collaborative spirit of the city gave me the push I needed to connect my passions into my paintings and illustrations which have now become my main work and which I am very grateful for now.

Q. What piece are you most proud of?
A. I particularly like my “Alice in Wonderland” series because I feel with it I really grasped the power that pop culture has for communicating controversial ideas.

Q. What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
A. You can do everything you want, but just don’t get caught. (Not sure it is the best, but it makes me laugh.)

Q. What is one thing they tried to teach you in school that you knew immediately was wrong?
A. The hierarchy of power, The catholic religion, and Iceberg lettuce.

Q. Where is your favorite place?
A. Close to the water, the sea, or a river, when I am in a landscape that reminds me that we are one, then my problems and the noise in my head become smaller.

Q. Who are your biggest influences?
A. I find my roots in pop culture. Old cartoons and movies appear in my work without me even realizing it.  The other day I found myself rewatching the movie “Yellow Submarine” (one of my father’s favorite movies) and noticing how many connections of myself I could find in the imaginary world the movie had created.

Q. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?
A. Love what you do.

Q. Which current art world trends are you following?
A. I really enjoy current artists’ aesthetics like James Jean and concepts of art activists like JR, I am interested in how they analyze nowadays issues through their own eyes and how their work impacts others. I also love to have a look at other artists like me on Instagram and how they develop their own storytelling.

Q. What can’t you live without?
A. Love & Music

Q. What is your dream project?
A. To collaborate with animators in a surreal music video for an artist I admire.

Q. What’s your favorite artwork of the collection?
A. I personally like La Petite Mort because it became the visual representation of a personal moment of change. When I started it I was in the middle of a big emotional hole and I stayed for a while in a loop just painting over and over the pink lines. 
As I started growing out of my personal situation I could also see the evolution of the painting, the changes in the face, and the flowers growing.

Q. What is currently on your playlist?
A. I love listening to Latin American music, especially Brazilian bossa, samba, and Peruvian cumbias. They really transport you into another world. I started my illustration career making posters in Bristol for the world music collective Worm Disco Club and making the merchandise for my own cumbia band Camo Clave, in both psychedelia and nature were very connected, so a big part of the inspiration for my colors and aesthetic comes from listening to these rhythms.

Q. What is your favorite piece of art?
A. This sounds like a cliche but I will always think of Hieronymous Bosh and his “The Garden of Earthly Delights”. I got in my hands one of his gallery books when I was very little and since then I was fascinated with the number of detailed characters that inhabit his pictures, I think of them as the TV of our era (now the internet), I imagine the rich families getting him to paint the most beautiful, twisted and fantastic stories of their times to entertain their days.

Q. What gives you life?
A. An amazing gig, playing music myself, running away from the city into new places, getting lost, and connecting with people. 

Q. What is your superpower?
A. Being stubborn is my superpower and my kryptonite. 

Q. What is your favorite thing in the world, and why? 
A. Finding inspiration, getting in the flow with things, and forgetting of the world around

Q. What ideas are you currently questioning?
A. How can the human race be so beautiful and twisted at the same time 

Q. Who is the one person, dead or alive, that you would like to have dinner with and why?
A. I would like to sit with my parents before they had me and ask them some questions about life.

Q. What’s next for you?
A. Dinner!

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Statement

In this series, Zilberberg creates animal montages as an expression of self-therapy. As an urbanite, functioning day-to-day in a fast-paced, built environment can be emotionally unsettling. The artist regrounds herself in the sense of calm issued by these animals. These creatures reinstate a presence, a tranquility, and a grander perspective. The works are an amalgam of many photographs from different locations around the world, put together seamlessly by the artist in post-production. Their minimal aesthetic is metaphorical of striving for simplicity. Rather than ruminating on the past, or hypothesizing the future, Zilberberg’s works invite a meditative state, encouraging the viewer to stay still and find happiness in the moment.

20 Questions with Alice Zilberberg

SurrealismToday.com: What did you want to be when you were growing up?

Alice Zilberberg: I never had a specific profession picked, but I knew I was going to do something artistic.

ST: What artwork are you are most proud of, and why? 

AZ: I am very proud of all my works, as I know that even the less successful ones were part of the path to creating the top works, so I see all pieces as part of my work.

Who is the one person, dead or alive, that you would like to have dinner with and why?

AZ: Salvador Dali. I consider him one of the greatest artists. I would’ve loved to have a conversation with him, and I have a feeling he would be entertaining company.

Where is your favorite place?

AZ: The beaches in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Who are your biggest influences?

AZ: Many of the baroque painters like Frans Snyder, and Jan Weenix. Of course, the surrealists: Dali and Magritte. I am also in love with the works of many contemporary photographers such as Loretta Lux and Jill Greenberg. I look at a lot of contemporary paintings for inspiration as well.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

AZ: There have been many lessons leading my way, however, the lesson to always be kind to others has always stood out. In my experience, giving to others is really valuable.

What can’t you live without?

AZ: Nature. I’m always planning the next trip to get a dose.

What is your dream project?

AZ: My dream project is always the one I’m working on currently. I don’t settle for less with my work. I do whatever needs to be done to get my current vision out into the world.

What’s your favorite movie?

AZ: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

What is currently on your playlist?

AZ: A lot of techno.

What is your last Google search?

AZ: Iceland travel August 2020.

What gives you energy?

AZ: 9 hours of sleep every night.

If you could visit any artist’s studio, whose would you visit?

AZ: I would go back in time and visit Frida and Diego’s house in Mexico.    

What was the last thing you bought?

AZ: Plant-based chocolate fudge brownie ice-cream.

What ideas are you currently pondering or questioning?

AZ: I’m currently thinking a lot about the state of the natural environment and its future.

What is your favorite thing in the world, and why?

AZ: My favorite thing is when I’m in a good state of flow with my work. 

If you could collaborate with anyone, who would it be, and why?

AZ: I would love to collaborate with a sculpture artist. I’ve always loved sculpture, and I’ve been thinking a lot about 3D artwork.

What helps you most in your work?

AZ: Maintaining my morning routine. I know the work will come when I have a schedule to work within.

What drives you to continue creating?

AZ: I always have ideas floating around that I am eager to try out, and I just know that they need to be created.

What is next for you?

AZ: I will likely continue to work with wildlife for a period of time, but I never know what can come up and inspire me.

Biography

Alice Zilberberg is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning artist, recognized by curators, collectors, and art patrons across the globe. Born in Tallinn, Estonia, and raised in Israel, she currently resides in Toronto, Canada. A graduate of Ryerson University’s Photography program, she began her artistic practice by painting: a verve which remains very much present in her digital works. The winner of numerous prestigious competitions, her accolades include 1^st place titles in competitions such as the International Photography Awards, the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards, and the Fine Art Photography Awards.

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Alice Zilberberg on Saatchi Art

Don Bergland is an artist creating surreal work using computer graphics as his paintbrush. The “uncanny valley” effect is in full view in Bergland’s work, making the work even more surreal.

The uncanny valley is a hypothesis in the field of aesthetics which holds that when features look and move almost, but not exactly, like natural beings, it causes a response of revulsion among some observers. The “valley” refers to the dip in a graph of the comfort level of beings as subjects move toward a healthy, natural likeness described in a function of a subject’s aesthetic acceptability. Examples can be found in the fields of robotics and 3D computer animation, among others. (Wikipedia)

Uncanny means “strange or mysterious, especially in an unsettling way.” We feel Bergland’s work is in dialogue with much surrealism & theater, but also video, video games and popular media. The work is surreal, strange, and unsettling.

Uncanny Valley Illustration

Artist Statement

I have spent over 50 years working in the studio and have moved through many visual styles in my art. For half that time, I worked as a traditional painter creating works on large canvases. I now find myself working with digital tools and techniques, constructing a neo-surrealistic language that integrates the viewer in a participatory dialogue in unpacking meaning from visual imagery. For me, the enclosed space of the visual image is a dramatic cerebral theater populated by realistic sets, objects, and figures which when combined with intention, offer challenging mental puzzles. Walking a thin tightrope between the obvious and the absurd, I construct sets which host small dynamic dramas based on the mind’s ability to build meaningful narratives from enigmatic sources. The resulting images are to be seen for what they are, and then for what they may not be. Although I arrange my objects in specific ways to express my own ideas, I am fully aware that the way the imagery is designed will lead to a multitude of different interpretations. For the careful observer, directional maps are suggested in each image. These maps are woven into the location, pictorial relationships, and surface appearances of the actors in each composition. I intend that the viewer will engage with the work, note surfaces, relationships, symbols, and metaphors, and will then construct personal meaning from the engagement. Like all studio-based languages of imaginative possibility, I have merely begun the journey of building and refining my own visual syntax and grammar of cerebral imagination. Each of my works is a record of that journey.

Biography

Don Bergland is an Associate Professor of Visual & Performing Arts at the University of Victoria and has been an active exhibiting artist for over 50 years. He describes his current work as a version of Neosurrealism with the objective of eliciting questioning attitudes in the mind of viewers. He creates his work using both traditional and digital tools, focusing on an integration of 3D modeling software and various graphic processing programs. Each of his artworks features a theatrical set defined by a stage with actors, props, and a backdrop. The actors in the set consist of everyday objects brought into combinations and interactions that attempt to elicit inquiry. The content of the artwork focuses on themes such as time, aging, nostalgia, the footless pursuit of Utopia, and the conditions of ideology which disable our rational minds. Each image is constructed using conventions of visual realism, but with alterations that offer dreamlike possibilities. Themes and objects appear and re-appear from image to image. Each artwork becomes a framed snapshot of a moment in theatrical space, noticed briefly, and then forgotten once more, a fraction of time when reality is breached and a frozen glimpse into the mental theatre of Eternity is experienced, an opening when the viewer can catch the faint hint of cotton candy breezing in from the sideshow midway, the pastel moment of a lost memory, a slight reminder that the past is never absent, and that the future is always in front of us. Don maintains an active international exhibiting career and has featured his artwork in over 150 major exhibitions throughout the world. He has won over 60 creative & professional awards for his work. His work is represented in major corporate and private collections such as the Gulf Oil Corporate Collection (Alberta), the Madrona Centre Permanent Collection (B.C.), the Canadian Utilities Corporate Collection (Alberta), the Timothy Eaton Foundation Collection (Canada), the Chevron Standard Corporate Collection (Alberta), as well as in private collections in Canada, the United States, and Europe. His current focus is in using 3D modeling environments to create surrealistic imagery for international exhibitions. He currently lives and teaches in Victoria, BC, Canada.

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Don Bergland on Facebook

Delicately placed butterflies and birds often decorate Christian Schloe’s surreal portraits. The art prints have a vintage feel and seem to offer a moment of contemplation to the viewer. The layers of meaning sometimes become available after a few moments of seeing, but remain deep, multifaceted and elusive. Some seem to be just beautiful images, and in others the artists’ inspiration could come from multiple sources or seem to be exploring concepts of movement, and time.

Schloe’s work feels part painting, part vintage photograph.

Christian Schloe has dozens of fine art prints available for sale here.

George Dawe was an English portrait artist who painted 329 portraits of Russian generals active during Napoleon’s invasion of Russia for the Military Gallery of the Winter Palace, Saint Petersburg, Russia. ReplaceFace uses digital copies of these paintings as a basis for his digital paintings which involve incorporating celebrities into these images using photoshop.

ReplaceFace

Jarek Kubicki

Artist Statement

I am fascinated with the way memory influences
how stories change and evolve over time.

This happens not because the facts change,
but because the inner orientation of the storyteller has.
Their perspective grows; expanding and contracting with experience.

The storyteller journeys us deep
into the timeless aspects of the human experience;
the kingdoms of love and loss, through grief, resolve, growth
and into the balance of purpose.

The human form, quite often a female form, is the storyteller within my art.
She comes to us in the nude, like a baby, with nothing to hide:
her full power and breadth still intact.

We see her as metaphor, as paradox embodied.

She has the power of flight, yet chooses to walk.
She has the ability to swim in great depths,
yet allows herself to be captured and tamed.

She teaches us, she moves through us,
and yet, she does not belong to us.
She is composed of images from the past and the present,
and thus inhabits multiple worlds at once.

This time traveler, this storyteller, unites the treads of time–
leading us home, bringing us back into ourselves.

Excerpts From LIZ HUSTON with Sue Molenda
Read the entire interview here: http://dwarfandgiant.com/books-of-blood-by-clive-barker-the-art-of-liz-huston/
Ms. Huston is part of the Spring Arts Collective, with a studio/gallery looking down into The Last Bookstore.

When Liz Huston greeted me in her shop above The Last Bookstore, I connected with electrifying joy. Her energy, her aura, is pure joy. Liz’s entire being is a work of art, and her skin a radiant “canvas” of tattoos. I could not resist buying a limited edition print, once she began quoting the poem that inspired it. “My Sweet, Crushed Angel” evoked thoughts of those I love whose dreams are dashed or out of reach. Liz and I shared a brief, delightful conversation and promised to complete our interview via email, as art admirers crowded into her Belle de Lune Gallery. Below is that interview.

Sue Molenda – Since you posted the 2010 video about how you create art, how has your process changed?
Liz Huston – I have learned to paint with acrylics, watercolors as well as learned digital painting, all of which I use in tandem with digital compositing. Switching between digital and tactile techniques makes the process much lengthier, but the results are so much richer!

…

SM – What influenced you to become a full time artist?
LH – I had a wonderful day job in the music industry, and was a photographer on the side, with a passion for traveling to New Orleans several times a year. In those travels I took hundreds (maybe thousands) of photos of New Orleans cemeteries with film, usually infrared film.

It was June 2005 when a friend told me people were using this new website (Lulu.com) to publish their own photo books. I suddenly knew I had to make a book of my New Orleans cemetery photographs, and it HAD to be on the shelves by Halloween of 2005. I worked furiously on the book. We even traveled to New Orleans in hot hot hot July, to get some last shots. I was driven by something I could not quantify. I felt something greater than myself pulling the book into existence at the same time I was pushing it.
As fate would have it, I uploaded that book to the printer the night before Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana. After seeing the awful devastation, I rewrote the introduction, vowing to use the book as a fundraiser, benefiting Habitat for Humanity and New Orleans-based Save Our Cemeteries. That book changed my life. I started doing events with my photography and book, a couple times a month. I started making jewelry and curiosities, and my traveling curiosity shop was born. Seven months after the book came out, I quit the job I loved in the music industry to do my traveling curiosity shop full time. From there I just kept following the path. That path led me to photomontage and eventually to where I am now!

SM – What resources did you use to learn about art and about the digital skills you use in creating art?
LH – I am a self taught artist. I’ve assisted photographic workshops, but was only a student in one weekend fashion lighting course. I learned photography through a passion for the medium, my local library, a homemade darkroom, and lots of artist & musician friends willing to experiment.
I learned entirely by doing. My first creation was a wedding portrait. I had eloped to New Orleans, and had no proper portraits. So, I made one, which I still sometimes exhibit, entitled “The Lovers”. After that, I wanted to create my own Tarot deck. The cards had taught me about symbolism. I subscribed to Photoshop magazine to learn new techniques, since in 2007-08, there weren’t many YouTube tutorials. It was an arduous process of trial and error, but in 16 months I had created 68 of the 72 cards. Unfortunately, my computer crashed, had to be rebuilt and I lost it all. The only piece I managed to recreate (because it was also on a disc) was “The Lovers”.
That loss, which destroyed me at the time, was a blessing in disguise. Those early pieces were my teachers. The work was rough, but the process taught me everything I needed to know to make the work I make now!

…

SM – Have you ever found, in your art, a catharsis for emotions that might not otherwise have found expression?
LH – I never would have survived the deep loss of my divorce without making art. Art lifted the pain out of me so I could view it in all its facets and eventually move forward. Art was my lifeboat and lifeline. It rescued me, and as the years have gone by, the art has taken me to brighter, calmer shores.

…

SM – Is your art the legacy you hope to leave, or have other aspirations tugged as mightily at your soul?
LH – Art is absolutely the legacy I wish to leave the world. I want to leave this place more beautiful than I found it, and I do that through my art.

SM – Is there anything else you would like to say — any nugget of wisdom you’d like to share?
LH – Please listen to the yearnings in your soul. Don’t follow another’s path, follow yours. The path may not be easy, but it will be worth it. Even if you have to do it in secret – follow your own breadcrumb trail. Making art is always challenging, and not always fun. But for me, it’s always right. Find your path, and follow it.
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