Category: Illusion

Bodies of Symmetry and Illusion: Photography by Maria Svarbova

Maria Svarbova is a Slovakian photographer who takes surreal photographs of people in Socialist-era public spaces. With her signature minimalist style, she focuses on color, composition, and atmosphere to harmonize the body with the surrounding architecture. The models resemble mannequins, often lined up, stacked, or turned away from the camera, creating a pervasive sense of […]

Modern Addictions: Surreal Photography by TOMAAS

In “Modern Addictions,” fine-art fashion photographer TOMAAS explores the over-consumption and dependency on prescription drugs. “Over the course of our lifetime, we are likely to be prescribed over 14,000 pills . . . [We] are on the verge of becoming a medicated society,” he explains, describing his inspiration for the series. In these photos, TOMAAS […]

10 Artists Who Use Animation to Create Tattoos in Motion

Motion is a concept that has intrigued even the earliest humans. A bowl dating back 5,200 years was found during the 1970s in Iran’s Burnt City. On it, five sequential images were found on its surface—a primitive zoetrope that produced the illusion of a goat jumping once the bowl was spun. Since that time, creatives […]

Sensitivity as Strength in Dreamy Paintings by Alexandra Levasseur

Dreaming women endure the elements of nature and life in the otherworldly paintings of Montreal-based artist Alexandra Levasseur. By abstracting rose gardens and Canada’s boreal forests in thick, pastel-hued layers of paint, Levasseur translates her landscapes into a vision of feminine solitude and introspection. There is a sense of surrender and strength as they melt […]

Op Art and Fizz: Illustrations and Animated GIFs by Karan Singh

Similar to the bright Hadeko fashion style in Tokyo (selecting a few basic colors and repeating them throughout the ensemble) is Karan Singh’s illustrations of repeated colors and patterns. The Aussie known for his “playful interpretation of minimalism” moved to the metropolitan prefecture of Japan and has continued working with international clients like Appy Fizz […]

Identity in the Raw: Paintings by John Reuss

The Denmark-based artist John Reuss paints abstractions of the face and body that explore alienation and the chaos of subjectivity. He works intuitively, merging consciousness with unconsciousness, building layers of paint, getting lost, reclaiming the image, and adding the finishing details with highlights and shading. The rawness of his process reveals the myth of inner […]

Patterns of Sorrow in the Photography of Misha Gordin

Misha Gordin is a conceptual photographer born in Latvia during the Soviet occupation. Over the course of several decades, Gordin has produced stunning images using shadows, shapes, and crowds, distilling the gamut of human experience into a single, piercing moment. Recurring themes include fear and alienation, resistance and collapse, the struggle for identity in a […]

Passion and Performance in Christopher Pew’s Surreal Oil Paintings

Note: Contains nudity. In an oil series tilted “8,” Canadian artist Christopher Pew paints shadowy, dystopic scenes imbued with symbolism. Inhabiting the images is a cast of ambiguous characters; stark-nude, masked, and garbed in white, they are bound together by a scarlet scarf, signifying a fidelity of blood and sacrifice in the barren lands. Moving […]

10 Contemporary Canadian Artists Who Reimagine Frontiers

Canadian art has been historically recognized for its representations of the country’s magnificent landscapes. Near the beginning of the twentieth century, the Group of Seven set out to capture Canada’s cultural spirit by painting the transcendent force of the wilderness. Their work reflects the purity, beauty, and mystery of nature—the mythos of the untameable Canadian […]