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.

alicezilberberg.com
Alice Zilberberg on Saatchi Art

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

Biography

Anis Tabaraee (Tehran, 1989) graduated with a BFA in Graphic Design in 2013 and an MA in illustration in 2018 from Tehran University of Art. Her art has been exhibited internationally.

Artist Statement

I am passionate about representing and expressing the world around me. I manipulate and exaggerate the details in the forms of creatures to create new and interesting worlds. I love to convey the Eastern mythos and mood in my art. I attempt to weave the threads from the rich historical tapestry of Eastern stories into my contemporary art. Work is strongly my culture, such as the sphinxes.

I draw with a ballpoint pen. This tool delicate lines and sharp color. It also helps me to develop my inspirations more easily to be close in my style. It’s also easy to be carried to every place that I have time to draw. I can pick it and start drawing even when I sit on a chair at subway to reach my destination.

I continue to develop my ideas to one day make an illustrated book of imaginary creatures.

Links:
instagram.com/anistabaraee
facebook.com/anis-tabaraee

Artist Statement

Chris Leib examines our precarious path started long ago, through his cast of wise, tolerant bonobos and rambunctious astronaut children. While seemingly whimsical, the paintings are laden with hidden meaning and explore themes of heroism, Western folklore, and the schism of instinct and control. Weaving through the meticulous detail in these paintings, threads of symbols and narrative point to a collision trajectory of power, privacy and technology that threatens our delicate position in the evolutionary scheme.

Chris Leib is an American fine artist and graduate of anthropology, renowned for his iconography of bonobo chimps and astronauts and cosmonauts, often juxtaposed, with exquisite technique and scrupulous attention to detail. Transcending whimsy, his paintings are imbued with meaning and intellectual contemplation. Leib’s work explores themes of heroism, human endeavour and the sensitivity of human hopes and ambitions for possible realities of science-fact. His work challenges us to contemplate a collision of science fiction, reality and religion, this three-car pileup viewed from the vantage point of our evolutionary ancestors, who have quietly continued to evolve themselves.

Chris Leib was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and splits his time between Berlin and California. His father, an artist and teacher, encouraged him to draw from an early age. His love of science fiction and Star Trek was incubated in the 1970s in a dark basement while he watched black and white TV; his interest in primates began at the University of California Berkeley, where he studied anthropology. After college, while working as a furniture mover, he answered an ad seeking people who could sketch. Four months later, he was offered a job as an illustrator. He later studied at the Academy of Art in San Francisco, after which he apprenticed with the Italian portrait painter Roberto Lupetti. During this time he also began working as an illustrator for McGraw-Hill Publishing and exhibiting paintings.

Leib has exhibited his artwork across the United States as well as in Germany, France, Denmark and Australia. His art has been positively reviewed in Hi-Fructose magazine, Huffington Post, Kunst Magazin (Berlin), Supersonic Electronic, Village Voice, Beautiful Bizarre, and HEY! magazine. Leib has twice been an Artist in Residence at the De Young Museum in San Francisco and has received competitive grants from the George Sugarman Foundation and the San Francisco Arts Commission. His work can be found in important public and private collections in the United States and Europe.

Links

chrisleib.com
Chris Leib Prints
facebook.com/ChrisLeibArt
instagram.com/chrisleibart

Tetat Ton Facebook

Sofia Crespo is an artist with a huge focus in bio arts and technologies. One of her main interests is the way organic life uses artificial mechanisms to simulate itself and evolve, this implying the idea that technologies are a biased product of the organic life that created them and not a completely separated object. On the side, she is also hugely concerned with the dynamic change in the role of the artists working with machine learning techniques.

instagram.com/soficrespo91
twitter.com/soficrespo91

Evan Lawrence creates strange and contemporary surreal art. Self-taught, Lawrence uses ambiguous symbolism to explore his transcendent visions. He is inspired by “the delusion of the beautiful things until the weird moments; represented by the emotional feeling of himself”.

Lawrence’s work is part reminiscence and part artifact of his own inner meditations. Reflecting on past experiences and encounters, the work raises questions of identity, meaning, and representation. Lawrence hopes his work ultimately contributes to a better world by acting as a mirror the viewers’ subconscious.

Artist Statement

“I see art personally as the bridge between conscious and subconscious, between what is real and not real. I express and balance my ego with it. Surrealism is like an escape room for me, a self-investigation of identity. I always try to infuse each piece of my work with my feelings, desires, moods, and dreams of the moment, using art as a basic language; transliterate the noetic perceptions into explicit views.”

https://www.instagram.com/vanlawrenc.art/
https://www.facebook.com/vanlawrenc.art

Buy Prints:

Open Edition: INPRNT – Evan Lawrence
Limited Prints: SPASIUM – Evan Lawrence
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Artist Statement

When I sit down to do my art, my intention is to create magic; to create a visual wonderland that brings the gift of insight into the realm of mystical perception.

Like Zen, I feel I am a channel for the direct transmission of that phenomenon, the mysterious now.

So, when I look down at a series of squiggles and an image suddenly appears, I’m frequently surprised and say, “Oh, that’s what that is,” and draw it. And sometimes I ask, “Where did you come from?!” Other times I’m drawing and the lines start flowing into a form as if drawing itself, so I finish it.

This is the experience I want to share with my audience, the very discovery of the images unfolding before their eyes. And from that revelation, it is my aim for the viewer to come away with a new sense of awe about the magic of creation.

Artist Bio

Virginia Stewart was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 25, 1952. She is currently a resident of Phoenixville, PA.

Virginia has for a lifetime been on a healing and spiritual journey after being exposed to a range of human thought from Eastern philosophy to Western psychology. Her spiritual interest began at the age of thirteen when she heard a practitioner of yoga speak of the journey to enlightenment.

Virginia attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with an intensive curriculum of life drawing, still life, figure painting, cast drawing from plaster statues, art history, materials and techniques, anatomy, and other related courses.

She also attended the Studio School of Art and Design where she extended her artistic toolset with typography, mechanical drawing, color theory, illustration, and other methods and media.

Virginia’s curiosity for learning new things took her in many different directions, such as exploring physics and astronomy. And because of her love of learning about the city she lived in, she became a tour guide in Historic Philadelphia.

In 2009, she joined a unique learning center called Sphere College Project, where she gained the confidence to set out on her true path to becoming an important fine artist.

Virginia Stewart Print

Exhibitions include: The Crescent Awards Show at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Print It Frame It Ship It, Steel City Gallery and Cafe, The Phoenix Village Art Center, “May Is Mental Health Month” (a traveling show sponsored by Fellowship Health Resources), Local Sphere Gallery and Crafts, Stages Arts Initiatives, and Franklin Commons Gallery “Flight” Show; Colors of Humanity, “Animals”; 3 Square Art Gallery, “100 Square Inches of Art”; Colors of Humanity, “Open”

Awards: SUNDAY SOUP AWARD, 2011 to frame her artwork; FIRST PRIZE, Fellowship Traveling Show, 2012 for Rose Empress; HONORABLE MENTION, The Phoenix Village Art Center Membership Show, 2013 for Flower Pod.

Commissions: Richard Liston, Radiant Swan, Emergence, Shell Pillow, Bumbees, and Tadpole Bowl; Scott Levy, Scott’s Life; Frank Kelso Wolfe, Portrait of Frank for a collection of poems, Love and Bagels.

Articles: “Vote for Your Favorites at Phoenix Village Art Center “, Phoenixville Patch, May 2011; “Virginia ‘Ginny’ Stewart”, Phoenixville Patch, May 2012.

Influences: Theodore Geisel, M.C. Escher, Edward Hopper, Jan Van Eyck, Albrect Durer, Vincent Van Gogh, Salvador Dali, Frans Hals, Henri Rousseau, Johannes Vermeer, Eugene Delacriox, John Singer Sargent.

Website

viewsfromwithin.com

ARTIST STATEMENT

The main goal of my art is to find out who am I and explore the outside world.
Viewing through the lens of the creative process gives me the possibility
to shift the focus away from the vanity of common life and tap into stranger invisible world, the origin of the entire existence…

It was a long way started back in 1999 when I stepped on the streets with a spray can. During the next 18 years, I developed a fairy tale visual language, a visual storytelling with a transcendental ethereal form of contemporary muralism.

Inspired by the old master’s art I continue my evolution, I like to imitate the esthetic of antique book illustrations and old engravings in my murals, canvases, and drawings.

During the last 2 years, when street art became a mainstream, I decided to shift my focus on studio work, now contemporary and fine art scene looks more appropriate scene for my art.

waone.net
instagram.com/waone_interesnikazki/
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1. Midnight Mass by Michelle Concetta

Brilliant surrealist collage artist Michelle Concetta contrasts classical imagery with contemporary photography in these evocative collages. This gorgeous and growing body of work is a brilliant addition to any cutting-edge collectors collection. Midnite Mass is just one of several mouth-watering prints available by this artist.

2. Manor House by Arabella Proffer

Proffer‘s Manor House is just one of a gorgeous collection of pop surrealistic artworks. Proffer “brings together my interests in botany, microbiology, space, disease, and the evolution of cells. I subconsciously explore the relationships between anatomy, biology, nature, and emerging sciences while creating from my own imagination.”

We love beautiful art and painting. And we’re just in awe of Proffer’s astounding imagery.

See more by pop-surrealist painter Arabella Proffer.

3. Bloom by Frank Moth.

4. Spore Collector by Eugenia Loli.

5. Elephant by Vincent Fink

Vincent Fink’s Iterations: In the pursuit to better redefine modern surrealism, I often find myself indulging in the vibrancy of color and concise composition with flaring elements of Sacred Geometry. The same level of intense detail is implored in all of my work but this series attempts to focus on the singularity and realism of the objects in my visions. I want to convey the world through another dimension: to see the hidden geometry that makes up everything in the universe:

6. Film Noir by Cassia Beck

7. Meteoric Rainfall by Picomodi

8. Pink Eruption by Filip Hodas