Contemporary Surrealism

Editors note: 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 […]

Stills About Scales Scales is a project born from a dialogue between photographer Nicola Spadafranca and a sound designer Enrico Nicola Cascavilla. Cascavilla interpreted Spadafranca’ photographic project “Squame” making a short moving experimental video art using just the photographs. Cascavilla found a story through the photos that he told just with sound and a cinematic editing […]

Haunting and surreal oil paintings by Chicago-based artist Nicholas Nadja. Nadja paints a world slightly off. A still life consisting of veiny-foot vase with sunflowers. A nude, headless female torso hanging from fish hooks and growing roots. (Titled Looking Through The Window Of An Abolished Trinity.) A cubist portrait where the subjects seems to be grimacing […]

Polish artist Jerek Kubicki creates painterly, mostly monochromatic digital paintings. The work feels almost like the demonic lovechild of Jackson Pollock and Zdzislaw Beksinski. I love it. It’s brilliant. It appears as though Kubicki is painting on his photography, or photographing his painting (or both) and melding digital and organic seamlessly together. Recurring themes include the […]

The Invisible Empire series by Juha Arvid Helminen depicts figures of authority in all black, against dark or black landscapes with their faces obscured.  The series revels in darkness, anonymity and brutality. I’ve had an irrational fear of the potential that “the crowd” become (in experiences as mundane as a sports game) since I was young. A few years ago […]