Known alternatively as the Lowbrow movement, Pop Surrealism is an art form that originated in LA’s underground scene in the 1970s. Like other surrealist art forms, lowbrow art strives to reach deep into the unconscious mind and bring to life our innermost thoughts. Our compulsions, hidden memories, and more are displayed in unusual and absurd ways, no matter how light or dark. In this movement, however, artists draw inspiration from popular culture. In a pop surrealist collage, an artist may take inspiration from cartoons, street art, various music scenes, comics, pinups, and modern-day brands, amongst other things.

Pop surrealism is all about breaking the rules of conventional art— that’s why lowbrow artists strive to make up their own. Some critics turn their noses up at this art movement and, at times, even question its validity. Nonetheless, pop surrealists understand the power of borrowing aspects of pop culture and turning them on their head to create something unique, that connects with audiences in an utterly profound way.

Are you interested in learning more about the lowbrow movement? Take a look at the following profiles of some of the world’s best pop surrealist collage artists. 

Some of Today’s Best Lowbrow and Collage Artists

Side Dimes

Mikayla Lapierre is a Brooklyn based art director with a strong background in advertising design and graphic design. Lapierre’s works, self-titled “Side Dimes”, dissect the cultural and societal norms surrounding femininity. In most of her works, she takes 18th and 19th-century portraiture and digitally imprints modern-day items that the women in her pieces interact with. The women in these classical portraits can be seen chewing bubblegum, posing with fast food, and wearing branded jewelry. In her most recent series, Lapierre experiments with personal protective equipment and stacks of toilet paper in her Social Distancing Series — a response to the current events surrounding COVID-19. 

Linz Sepe

San Diego artist Lindsey “Linz” Sepe is known for her otherworldly prints. The events in her works feel as though they are happening on another planet, or perhaps even an Earth in another dimension. From skateboarding on Saturn’s rings to lounging on the moon to trippy time warps, Sepe’s works are far from boring to look at. West-coast beach pop influences are highly apparent in Sepe’s pieces. She often incorporates vintage photos of bikini-clad models, palm trees, vintage architecture, and intense pops of color.

Jeff Drew Pictures

Jeff Drew is a musician, animator, and graphic designer. Where he’s gaining increasing notoriety, however, is his surrealist artwork. Drew takes inspiration from a seemingly endless number of sources, but perhaps the two most apparent are vintage movie (as well as burlesque) posters and the world of the occult. Much like a deck of tarot cards, Drew encapsulates many of his works with elaborate borders and labels his creations with bold graphic titles or descriptions. Drew often plays with the concept of duality, whether it’s through the literal use of masks or the interpretation of beloved television characters as more than what they seem. 

Tyler Varsell

Artist and illustrator Tyler Varsell is based in Connecticut. Her works have been published in esteemed publications like the New York Times and Kolaj Magazine. Varsell uses collage as a means of identifying and questioning our world. Though her emotional intent varies between works, as with all artists, Varsells works have a tranquil and even comforting quality about them. Varsell’s collages mesh symbols of her own subconscious thoughts and memories with appealing landscapes and symbols that bring a smile to the viewer’s face. After all, what food lover wouldn’t want to smother themselves in a bed of mac & cheese?

Taudalpoi

Tau Dal Poi (stylized online as “Taudalpoi”) is a Norweigan artist based currently in London. His works are simpler in design than some of the other artists on this list, but no less expertly crafted. Taudalpoi’s mixes awe-inspiring cosmic graphics with natural landscapes, or pieces of modern architecture — or, in some cases, both. The human subjects in his prints are often miniaturized, causing the viewer to reflect on how small we truly are in this vast universe. While other artists push to make showcase this fact as sobering, or even disheartening, Taudalpoi’s subjects enjoy the expanse, feeling joy, tranquility, freedom, and power. As a result, we feel the same. 

Phil Jones

Artist and product designer Phil Jones has an incredible sense of humor, which he imbues in nearly everything he creates. Jones works across a variety of mediums, including film, photography, and design. If you aren’t aware of his “Lord of the Flies” swatter, you should be. The majority of Jones’ artwork is more print than collage work, and these prints are minimalist in nature. Nonetheless, they are surrealist works that comment on various aspects of popular culture. Jones makes it his challenge to take idioms and puns and turn them into lighthearted pictures that are bound to make you smile.

Lorien Stern

Graphic and ceramic artist Lorien Stern runs her brand out of Inyokern California. In her work, her intention is to bring joy to her audience through her rounded and inviting designs and comforting subject matter. Stern’s main subjects are animals of several varieties. She displays keen interests in predators and marine life (mainly sharks), the intimidating features of which she disarms with bright colors and bright prints. In her creations, Stern takes these real-life animals and turns them into surreal creations — fantasy creatures that leave adults and children alike in awe.

Heather Heininge

The works of Heather Heininge blur the lines between surrealist collage and reality. The stunning landscapes in her prints are so artfully crafted together, you might confuse them for photographs of real places. While this bafflement is a coveted reaction by most artists in the world of lowbrow, Heininge’s collages are anything but true to life. Heininge often experiments with doorways and portals to other worlds. Her human subjects are nearly always in a state of travel or contemplation — perhaps a purposeful reflection on the human desire to search for more on both spiritual and physical plains. 

Luisa Azevedo

Based in Lisbon, Portugal, Luisa Azevedo has turned heads in the art world since she was 18 years old. Azevedo started experimenting with surrealism in 2015. After some practice, she began to develop her own unique style a year later. She began using real-life photographs of locations, objects, and animals to build fantasy creations that any Hollywood exec would beg to use as conceptual work for their next big feature. In her efforts to satisfy her need for magic, Azevedo has used flora and fauna to create hundreds of fantastical creatures and environments that anyone would hope to visit.  

Justine Henderson

Expert photographer and salsa maker extraordinaire, Justine Henderson is also beginning to dive into the world of pop surrealism. In her collage work, Henderson experiments with wide-open spaces like desert plains, empty roads, and serene mountain ranges. Her sources are typically vintage, as seen in her use of a gun-slinging western hero in her print, The Gods Must Be Crazy. In each piece, she gives her audience an intriguing focal point, which is often out-of-place in contrast to the rest of the setting. Though her catalog of collage work is currently limited, her pieces have gained high favor in the art community.

Mr.babies

A self-described “psychedelic analog collage artist”, the Arizona-based Mr.babies is well on his way to becoming a household name in the world of surrealist art. Mr.babies uses collage as a form of meditation and reflection. He starts with a vintage base and works digitally to create a psychedelic symphony of mind-blowing imagery. His expertly crafted collages are at times so intricate that one could spend hours finding new meaning in every square inch. At other times, Mr.babies delivers simpler works meant to convey a single message or emotion.

Irie Wata

Irie Wata’s collages can be identified for their tendencies to bend the physical rules of our world. In her prints, you can find people frolicking and driving their cars in the sky, playing pool on the moon, and relaxing by the world’s literal edge. Wata creates a stark dichotomy in each and every one of her pieces. She mixes the activities of everyday living with environmental oddities and even catastrophic events. Though her interpretation can vary between viewers, Wata seems to illustrate humanity’s ignorance of the beauty of our planet – and the catastrophe we cause when we take it for granted.  

Richard Vergez

Born in Philadelphia and currently based in South Florida, Cuban-American artist Richard Vergez uses collage to showcase his ideas and perspectives on how human beings interact with each other. Vergez’s work has been featured in New York, Chicago, Londo, France, and Argentina, among others. His mixed-media collages are often minimalist works — a few special elements chosen to help Vergez create profound stories. Nearly all of his works are human-centric; his subjects are often depicted in mid-action or altered to showcase specific ideas about the human psyche. 

As you can see from the wondrous works of these artists, pop surrealism varies significantly in design and execution. Pop culture is vast, and an artist could head in any direction when developing concepts and deciding which media they should use to convey them. This, however, is what makes pop surrealist collage work so profound.

The paintings of Moldovan artist Valeriu Buev explore the strange and poetic tragedy of the human condition. Although Buev uses the language of surrealism and dream, his stunning images remain fully rooted both psychically and technically in material reality. Through the processes of distortion and imagination, Buev confronts the stark costs of humanity’s darker tendencies, such as war and corruption.

And yet, Buev’s work doesn’t rely upon simplistic platitudes and does not fall back on propagandistic tropes. Instead, each gorgeously painted image is wildly open to interpretation through visual metaphor and rich layers of ambiguity.

Each surrealistic image is embedded firmly in the near past or possible symbolic present.

Buev doesn’t indulge in idealism or painting surrealist images disassociated from present reality. Instead, he unflinchingly confronts the stark realities of our world and transforms each transgression into something oddly beautiful, poetic, and archetypal.

Others of Buev’s images remain just beautiful and opaque. The artist’s symbolism suggests something meaningful. Like a Rorschach test, each skillfully crafted image queues the viewer to delve into his own subconscious. Our reading may tell us more about our own current emotional landscapes than we first assume.

Follow Valeriu Buev on Facebook

Prints can be obtained from Saatchi Art and on Fine Art America:

Valeriu Buev on Fine Art America

Valeriu Buev on Saatchi Art

However, Dalí’s oeuvre is not simply limited to oil paintings; throughout his career, he dabbled in a wide variety of eccentric and surprising formats. He made sculptures, cookbooks, wine guides, designed sets for plays and operas, and even collaborated on an animated film with Walt Disney. One of the most unique undertakings of his career though is undoubtedly the infamous Dalí tarot deck, which has been a highly-sought and hard to find collector’s item since its original release in the mid-80s. Well, good news: the Dalí tarot deck is back, and it’s better than ever.

Taschen, the publisher behind a number of high-end hardcover volumes of Dalí’s work, has recently re-released the Dalí tarot deck as a beautiful 78-card box set. Included with the deck itself is an insightful companion book by author and tarot scholar Johannes Fiebig, which delves into Dalí’s life and process while completing his tarot series. The book also provides detailed information on the history of tarot, explanations of what the individual cards mean, and instructions on how to perform your own readings with the deck. The addition of Fiebig’s book elevates the previous version of the deck by making it one of those rare art objects that are not only inspiring to behold, but also functional to use.

Although it’s easy to imagine Dalí deciding to delve into tarot cards on a psychedelic whim, his original impetus for creating the deck is perhaps even stranger than the fact that he made one at all. The deck was commissioned by famed film producer Albert Broccoli as a prop for the classic 1973 James Bond film Live and Let Die, starring Roger Moore and Jane Seymour. In the film, Seymour plays a psychic medium called Solitaire who uses tarot cards to track the legendary MI6 spy James Bond. Legend has it that after Dalí began working on the deck it became clear that his fees would be too high for the production to afford, so Broccoli decided to scrap the idea and the tarot deck prop was cut from the film.

Thankfully, Dalí’s wife Gala encouraged his interest in mysticism and the occult, and he became so enamored with the process of creating the tarot deck that he continued to work on it for more than a decade. 

Many of the cards themselves feature Dalí’s interpretations of classic works of art, such as Vincenzo Camuccini’s The Death of Julius Caesar, which stands in for the Ten of Swords. As a tribute to Gala, he included her likeness in the deck as the figure of the Empress, which is quite an appropriate choice, since the Empress represents the creation of life, romance, and art. Dalí also included himself in the deck as the figure of the Magician, which represents self-confidence and signifies success in upcoming ventures. When he finally completed the tarot deck in 1984, the original limited edition was lauded by tarot readers and Dalí fans alike and quickly sold out, so it seems that his casting of himself as the magician was indeed a prophetic choice… fated by the cards, perhaps?

For a particularly surreal tarot experience, and as a supplement to Fiebig’s guide, try combining the Dalí tarot deck with surrealist filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s series of instructional tarot YouTube videos, in which he provides in-depth lessons on the history and practice of tarot reading, as well as personalized readings for followers of his channel. Jodorowsky and Dalí were contemporaries, and Dalí was even slated to appear in Jodorowsky’s ill-fated attempt to make a big-budget version of the sci-fi classic Dune. Although there’s no evidence that the two surrealist visionaries ever discussed their mutual interest in tarot, at least not on record, it’s fun to imagine what that conversation would have been like; one has to assume it would have been either extremely profound or completely incomprehensible.

Until the new Taschen edition, which was released this past November, original copies of the deck were extremely hard to come by, selling for upwards of $500 on online auction websites like eBay. The 2019 version of the deck is much more affordable, retailing on Taschen’s website for $60 USD. It makes a perfect gift for any lover of Dalí’s artwork, or just tarot cards in general. So if you want to take a surreal glimpse into your future, or just have some fun with your open-minded, art-loving friends, there’s no better way to do so than with a tarot deck designed by the inimitable Salvador Dalí.

Combining the occult with his own unmistakable sensibility, Dalí’s tarot is a pastiche of old-world art, surrealism, kitsch, Christian iconography and Greek and Roman sculpture.

— openculture.com

Deck of 78 tarot cards with booklet in a box, 7.4 x 13 in., 184 pages

Further Reading:

Melbourne artist Xtian was conceived in East Germany but born in Hungary – that makes him one part Australian and two parts former communist.

He’s been actively collaging for two-plus decades – but is not adverse to making music or short animations. His works can best be described as questions, or “edge of comprehension”. He has exhibited and been published both locally and overseas – most recently by Oyster Moon Press’ Hydrolith 2: Surrealist Research & Investigations.

He is also one half of the now ten-year-old – and still growing! – exquisite corpse project The Infinite Collage (close to 80m long!), and is the creator of the longest-running surreal collage comic series The Micturating Angel.

Xtian is the founder of Melbourne Kollage Ultra, and a contributing member of a number of other collage groups.

Artist Statement

(Before you proceed: the images are an extract from a much larger work.)

“…too arty for comic book lovers, too comic booky for art lovers…”

Do you like comics? So do I. Marvel? Hell no! Okay, we’re gonna be friends then.

This is not an “artist statement” – that will come some other time. This is an introduction to “The Micturating Angel”. A spiel. A sales-pitch. But not an explanation – maybe an excuse? A necessary use of words to explain images that have already said all they can?

Do you like comics? I mean REAL comics, like Charles Burns’ stuff, or Druillet’s or Kago Shintaro or Nihei Tsutomu? Or “The Sandman” series by Neil Gaiman?

Right.

But what about weird stuff by the original Surrealists and the Dadas? Are you familiar with Max Ernst’s collage novels or Gilliam’s animations from Monty Python? What about free jazz, avant-garde music and the writings of William Burroughs? The (good) films of David Lynch? Those books from the 90s put out by V. Vale, the “REsearch” books? Are you familiar with the æsthetics of early industrial music culture or with the visuals of punk underground collages and photocopy art?

Am I laying this on too thick?

You wanted a statement, an introduction, so a schooling you’re gonna get, son.

Right. We’ve established the basics, so meet “The Micturating Angel”, the “Naked Lunch” of comic books! I unashamedly call it a comic, ‘graphic novels’ are for pretentious twats. But its a comic with a fatal flaw: too arty for comic book lovers, too comic booky for art lovers – where do you draw the line?

Why even draw it? (And why even draw a comic in the first place?)

I grew up in Eastern Europe, pre-Fall-of-Communism, so my background is a little different from yours. I read mostly French comics translated into Magyar, I read nonsense literature from Germany and local writers and science books (never became an astronaut though). Emigration was a grand adventure and high school was a ridiculous shock: all the beauty of learning coupled with everyone hammering a round peg into a square whole.

Squares man. They can be so beautiful when they’re not people.

Like the panels of a comic book. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

In high school, I invented surrealist writing – not being aware of its well-established existence. It saved my brain for greater things. Eventually, I met some actual surrealists, some actual poets, and artists and some actual interesting life.

And here we are today – and I’d like you to meet my children – The Micturating Angels (there’s more than one).

Q: What does “micturating” mean?
A: Pissing.
Q: Wut?
A: It’s all you get.

A surreal collage art-comic series seven years in the making (and counting). Somewhere between 2ooo – 3ooo collages in total, including the guest stars, the Secret Chiefs (guys in charge of this here Cosmos). Unraveling the adventures and sanity levels of young girls against their captive, oppressive world (is this a feminist comic? I don’t know…). Young girls against crappy old men and institutions, religious zealots, ignorance vs. science, freaks!

Drawing on source materials ranging from hardware catalogues to religious imagery to medical illustrations, alchemical instructions, furniture assembly instructions, “dirty” comics, mangas, giallos, and cannibalistic self-re-absorptions, the “Necronomicon” (containing not all but most of the sigils of the “Fifty Sacred Names of Marduk”), engineer’s manuals and mathematical formulæ

– do you still like comic books?

Then you’ll love this one! Playing with the conventions of comics to create striking visuals, adventures revealed through non-linear story-telling and complete non-sense dialogue – yes, the words are a red herring – “The Micturating Angel” is a unique comic that will never be understood by anyone – and that makes it an enduring mystery, I hope. (Aren’t questions better than answers? No, they’re not. But Bigfoot is more interesting when you DON’T know that it’s just mountain-lion footprints.)

And there it is. My seven-year Grand Opus, unlike its predecessors (all the other books I’ve made), and a never to be repeated exercise by me. And I WANT you to enjoy it! I really do, I want you to look beyond the confusion, I want you to stop trying to make sense of it and revel in what it actually IS: an ever-shifting series of nightmares laid out like the storyboard of a Hollywood blockbuster that will never be made.

Welcome aboard. I hope you like THIS comic.

– Xtian, 2019

“I LOVE your collage work! It is VERY surreal… your comics are great! … Good luck with your project!”
– Rev. Ivan Stang, Church of the Subgenius

“… a very original comic…”
– Surrealismo Internacional

Books: lulu.com/spotlight/gadzooxtian
Prints: redbubble.com/people/Gadzooxtian
Facebook: facebook.com/The-Micturating-Angel-1609957469288457
Site: gadzooxtian.com

Artist’s Statement

I’m a surrealist but I also consider myself a landscape painter.

I like to paint biomorphic forms but I’m also interested in capturing the moods of various landscapes.

I like to depict the weather and the seasons – the seasons especially because seasons note the passing of time.

Winter has a special meaning for me as well. It represents solitude and wonder.

Much of my work is inspired by ‘mindscape’ music such as New Age, psychedelic, certain classical pieces, prog rock and medieval music.

As I grow older I’ve become increasingly more intrigued by what life’s Final Door has in store for us. Is it a doorway to eternity or oblivion?

James McCarthy on DeviantArt
James McCarthy on Facebook

About Konan Lim

Konan Lim is a Dubai-based Filipino artist. Lim was born and raised in the Philippines and discovered his passion for art at a young age. During his childhood, Lim won numerous art competitions. In 2005 he received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture at Western Mindanao State University, Zamboanga City, Philippines.

In 2007 he moved to Dubai to work as an Architect while still pursuing painting. From 2012 he participated in several local exhibitions to international shows. He has been commissioned in mural art events & collaborated with several artists.

Lim whimsically portrays childhood nostalgia through his representational paintings. The works play on the boundaries of playfulness and cuteness-overload but with something strange ominous permeating the atmosphere. Each work is exquisitely rendered and painterly: Lim’s craftmanship is surpassed only by his own strange imagination.

Lim’s images juxtapose conflicting emotions into a unified narrative: suggesting something strangely distorted and through-the-looking-glass about childhood memory in his compelling, surrealistic images.

konanlim.com

He began to work as a full-time painter at the start of 2019.

Sites:

https://hnamdas.wixsite.com/paintings
https://www.saatchiart.com/account/artworks/1229023
https://www.instagram.com/thenamdas/

Artist Statement

Wallpaper patterns, plasterwork or just doodles have always animated my fantasies. I’ve recognized paintings in them and lost myself in the surreal world. Back in my childhood, those were the first contacts with surrealism.

When I was going to school, I used to draw doodles and sketches into my school books. It often started with a simple line that got embellished, shaded and like that everything found its place. One after another.

Letting things create themselves is an important step in my working. I start working without any plans, I let it arise. I don’t work with deadlines, the painting is finished when everything is its right place and I’m satisfied with the painting. I often only realize what it represents when I’m finished.

My goal is to represent the tremendous expressiveness of nature through my paintings. The power and strength of the wind, the dryness of the ground and even the humid air before a thunderstorm. In my eyes, nature is the mightiest of all artworks.

That’s when I combine nature with opposing motives. Surreal elements arise and join in.

First, the canvas is worked on with acrylic followed by multiple layers of oil paint. I mix the surreal and abstract with the intent to create an atmosphere.

I see my paintings as a window, through which you can glimpse another world.

Follow Ruedi Eichenberger

reartch.jimdo.com/
facebook.com/reart.ch

Seamless is a Digital Composite Collage Artist

Artist: Seamless on Redbubble
Prints: Seamless on Society6

In post-war Japan, a shortage of goods and materials meant the country was flooded with commodities from foreign countries. Okanoue used fragments from Western fashion magazines such as Life, Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, to create radical compositions combining body parts, animals and inanimate objects in dynamic arrangements. Although the component parts of her collages originated from Western sources, Okanoue herself regarded her technique of image making as deeply rooted in Japanese tradition. She thought of her works as a form of hari-e (‘hari’ meaning pasting and ‘e’ meaning a picture in Japanese), a traditional Japanese technique of making pictures by pasting small pieces of coloured paper onto pasteboard.

It was only in 1952, upon meeting the poet and artist Shuzo Takiguchi, that Okanoue found her own place in art history. Takiguchi was a leading figure of the Surrealist movement in Japan, and introduced Okanoue to the works of the famous Surrealist, Max Ernst, whose style had a decisive influence on her. During the subsequent six years, Okanoue produced over 100 works. Her collages remained idiosyncratic and dreamlike in their juxtaposition of contradictory imagery. In 1953 and 1956, she held solo exhibitions at Takemiya Gallery, Tokyo. However, as with many Japanese women of this era, her marriage in 1957 ended her artistic career.

Okanoue returned to her hometown of Kochi, where she now lives. She is married to the painter Fujino Kazutomo. Her work faded into obscurity and was overlooked for almost 40 years. However, it was rediscovered by the curator of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in the mid 1990s, and has since gained recognition for its contribution to the Japanese avant-garde. In 1996 her works was shown in Meguro Museum of Art, and has subsequently been collected by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

– via huxleyparlour.com/toshiko-okanoue-a-surrealist-in-japan/