Ana Benaroya

Hypercolored beach guidos, fire breathing monsters, Christians hell bent on hedonism and bearded ladies are just a few of the colorful characters that inhabit the canvases of the work of Ana Benaroya. I really enjoy the warped and skewed forms she creates, and am especially fond of her gestural portraits – blobs of colors and swaths of dots and patterns are then embellished with wild eyes and bright red lips. Capturing the absurd and the abstract in fantastic ways.

Visit Ana Benaroya’s portfolio here.

Ricardo Gonzalez Garcia

Patterns, structures and environments come crashing together in the surrealist aftermath paintings by Ricardo Gonzalez Garcia. Ricardo describes his works as a meeting ground of multiple dimensions and I couldn’t agree more. Rooms and architectural elements dissolve into flat, 2D spaces inhabited by color swashes and detailed ornamentation which gives the works a woozy, dream-like quality.

Visit Ricardo Gonzalez Garcia’s portfolio here.

Allison Schulnik

It’s hard to pinpoint the precise influential artists that the paintings of Allison Schulnik possibly reference and were inspired by, but her often macabre and sometimes terrifying works clearly continue themes of life and death and the spiritual realm between them that have existed for centuries in art history. Some of her pieces remind me of Grecian friezes, with their pale hues and dimensional piles of paint and material, while others seem to embody the same dour portraiture and grotesque fantasies of Flemish painters like Bosch and Van Scorel. Others still, appear to be influenced by primitive African drawings, or neanderthal figures.

None of this is meant to imply that Allison’s oeuvre isn’t cohesive, it’s just wonderfully varied, with the binding elements being more in tone and less in actual aesthetic. There are common threads of dread, anguish, fear and torment throughout all of the pieces, and viewing them is succession almost creates a scary but fascinating narrative in itself.

See Allison Schulnik’s artwork here.

Yago Hortal

Barcelona-trained, Berlin-based artist Yago Hortal has been creating his colorful acrylic based abstract artwork for years, but he’s only just recently come across my radar. I love the smeared, serpentine streaks seemingly suspended in neutral tanks of gradients and the giant Gerhard Richter-esque paint draw-downs taking center stage on his dramatic and expressive creations.

Visit Yago Hortal’s portfolio here.

Dulux Walls – paint commercial

A beautiful time-lapse commercial promoting the power of color (via painting) to transform grey spaces into vibrant, happier realms. This was done for Dulux Walls throughout Europe, and is perfectly accompanied by the music of Jonsi.

(thanks to my friend Dan for finding this!)

weekly stimuli – vol. 18

Here’s the newest installment of Weekly Stimuli – a batch of images from my inspiration archives.

Enjoy the images after the jump!

Betsy Watson

Artist Betsy Watson creates surreal, highly detailed fantasy worlds that I really admire. They lie somewhere between primitive folk-art and ancient religious renderings, with figures engaged in magical surroundings or communicating without words.

You can see more of her great work here and check out the shop while you are there for affordable prints!

Weekly Stimuli – vol. 17

Here’s the latest installment of Weekly Stimuli – a batch of images from my inspirational archives.

Enjoy the images after the jump!