Naked, decapitated women were a favorite amongst the macho surrealists of the 1930s, projecting their desire and power onto phantom breasts and bellies. The female figures in Becky Kolsrud's surrealist paintings might also be missing heads and appendages, but they are...
PICK OF THE WEEK: Becky Kolsrud
KANSAS CITY, MO: Linda Lighton PSYCHO CERAMICS
With their blend of surreal retro glamor, sociopolitical and personal commentary, Linda Lighton’s ceramic sculptures command a double take. This veteran artist can make clay do just about anything, and her art has unabashed palpable appeal. But Lighton is also...
René Magritte and the First Art Gang Book Review of "Magritte: A Life"
Magritte: A Life By Alex Danchev 439 pages, illustrated Pantheon Books When an artist achieves the kind of iconic status where they are known outside of the Art World, there can often be a tendency to codify their myth into something that might pass the Elevator Pitch...
A Journey into the Mind of Calliope Pavlides Pragmatic Surrealism
Calliope Pavlides engineers her compositions like a to-do list, an Easter egg hunt, or survival kit. Her works on paper for an upcoming exhibition at Harkawik in New York City exist as impossible still lifes and contrary landscapes. In the wake of a global pandemic, a...
THE PERSISTENCE OF DALI "The Dali Legacy" By Christopher Heath Brown and Jean-Pierre Isbouts
Salvador Dali has always had a troubled relationship with the Art World. His work embraced figurative representation during a century where deconstruction and reinvention were the mode du jour. His theatrics often upstaged his considerable talent. The amount of energy...
Alejandro Cardenas
Alejandro Cardenas' paintings present surreal myths woven partly from the artist's personal memories. The title of his show, "Calusa Garden," refers to a park near his childhood home on Key Biscayne, Florida. The periwinkle blue skies and green forests in paintings...
Sarah Wilson
In a world where robots gauge workers' bathroom breaks, attending to one's basic needs is seen as an indulgence. Current buzz around "self-care," a notion often shrouded in a mystical feel-good aura as though it were elusive as a rainbow, attests the dysfunctionality...
Jim Shaw: The Wig Museum
Are you one of those people who have difficulty making clear-cut distinctions between your night(or day)mares and the actuality of your everyday life? (I am – especially when I’m running a fever.) Jim Shaw not only gets you; he’s created a sacred space for your...
Irene Hardwicke Olivieri
In Irene Hardwicke Olivieri’s Subterranean Family (2013), a large woman crouches, her body sinking into the earth, weighed down by a patchwork of introspective self-images. One curls in a sphinx-like pose, her feline tail circling behind her back, as she clutches a...
MEXICO as MUSE
"Mexico is truly the promised land for abstract art." Anni & Josef Albers, 1936 “Mexico is the most surrealist country in the world.” Andre Breton, 1938 Why Mexico? It was not only that Mexico was nearby and easily accessible to U.S.–based artists, although that was...