Personal piece - Mixed media - ‘The Halloween Banquet’ / “The Fortune Cookie Hunter”, Mixed media on wooden panel in vintage tin can

Here are a some example pieces by Dutch artist/illustrator Femke Hiemstra, who’s work is currently on display (Through May 3) at the Roq La Rue gallery, seattle (with Travis Louie). Am sure you will agree Hiemstras paintings have an incredibly unique and quirky Lowbrow style that evokes the work of Mark Ryden and Robert Williams. Here is an excerpt from her show:

(Amsterdam) meticulously tight, jewel like mixed media paintings are homes to a dark, lush fairytale land where inanimate objects come to life and frolic with animal neighbors. Gingerbread men hunt for elusive confections, persian cats attended by moths smoke opium pipes, and flowers extract their revenge on insect tormenters. Femke uses typography in her work, using words and phrases from various languages and letters in her paintings to further enhance the narrative while still retaining a playful sense of mystery, or as a visual device to frame in the scenery, as if you were looking at her world through a secret window. Drawing from a range of influences, from firework wrappers to Japanese woodblock prints, Femke’s use of both pop culture detritus and child-like fantasy create a vibrant playground for the imagination, with each piece looking like a cover for a fantastical adventure book, which is left up to the viewer to imagine the story inside. She will be exhibiting 12 original paintings and several drawings.

On her website Femtasia, Hiemstra sells prints, shirts and buttons, and while it all looks to be of excellent quality, I’m most impressed with the button designs. You can see more of Hiemstra’s charming paintings from the show after the jump. more…

Like many artists of their generation, English brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman allude to an incredible amount historical reference in their work. This is particularly evident in a series (aptly) named “Hell” (1999–2000), of which portrays an apocalyptic vision of hell on Earth as war, Nazi atrocities, concentration camps, and mass executions with thousands of miniature figures taken apart and put together again. These were arranged in nine glass cases laid out in the shape of a swastika and later destroyed by the artists. Dinos Chapman is reported to have shrugged off the loss, saying, “We will just make it again… It is only art.”

See more from this series after the jump more…

Devils Charm // Lie - Both Graphite Miniatures on Antique paper

My work is strongly influenced by the images of my childhood. I was first exposed to Art through the colorful pages of children’s books. They fascinated me, and profoundly affected my artistic sensibilities. To this day, Fairy tale and nursery rhyme imagery are ever-present in my artwork - Jason D’Aquino

Jason D’Aquino is a Miniaturist from Brooklyn, NY. His drawings are done on a painstakingly tiny scale, many works not exceeding one inch by one inch. As you can imagine, work of such proportions must be viewed at very close proximity with the aid of powerful magnification. It is not just the meticulous detail that adds poignancy to the message in these, but the juxtaposition of the old and new, by drawing on a supercharged surface such as a (strike-on front) matchbook, 18th century animal skin vellum and other pieces of vintage ephemera.

See more at Jason’s virtual gallery featuring fantastical small-scale, highly detailed graphite drawings and surreal fairy-tale imagery here. Continue after the jump to see some of my favorites. more…

Bike Accident, 2005

• Julia Fullerton-batten

It is for her personal work in the field of fine art photography that UK-based Julia Fullerton-Batten is getting a reputation. In particular, the series entitled: Teen Stories. This series was developed out of Julia’s adoration for miniature villages. The photographs are hypnotic, slightly unnerving, juxtaposing teenage girls at the moment of facing maturity, many of which are involved in everyday leisure activities, at home, in the garden, at the swimming pool, or at the beach. Many of her concepts in this series, are in part: fairy tale (Alice in wonderland) with unique surreal twists. What’s more, they exemplify the real art of photography; making the ordinary into the extraordinary by seeing it in a completely unique way. See more examples from this extraordinary series after the jump. more…

Bitter*Girls//gustav magazine VI switzerland (French Edition)

• the bitter*girls

The Bitter*Girls is the work of Japanese photographer Jyune. His works are mainly landscape photography and experimental photography using tilt/shift lenses and lens filters. Jyune’s photography misleads our perceptions, using a rather particular process which gives the impression that the subjects are models, when in fact they are real. His work is remarkably similar to Ben Thomas’ shrunken city series. Both photographers use similar techniques to create these wonderful aerial photographs of real scenes, while at the same time creating extraordinary and unfamiliar micro-worlds. The compelling effect is obtained via the “tilt” - rocks of the focal plan compared to the plane of the sensor. If your not familiar with this tilt/shift, here’s some good background information about the technique. Some pseudo tutorials are also available using Photoshop CS filters to achieve similar effects, here’s a good one. For more inspiration, take a look at [31] more of Jyune’s totally fascinating micro-Tokyo photography, after the jump. more…

Chicken Truck

• Lori Nix

Working in a similar vain to Ben Thomas et al, Brooklyn born artist Lori Nix is also on a mission to make miniature landscapes with distressing details & then photographs the scene. Her photography and diorama consists of two collections: “Accidentally Kansas” and “Lost”. Pictured is the “ChickenTruck” from the series ‘Accidentally Kansas’, which explores Nix’s memories of growing up in the state combined with her love of 1970’s disaster movies. Her photographs are very dramatic, eerie and melancholic snapshots of enigmatic occurrences. It is only after lengthy viewing that we realize that there is more to them than just their subject matter, for Nix’s images seem almost too perfectly composed to appear real and contain an uncertain nature, much like the world in which we live in. Thus, her work reinforces the inherent paradox of the photographic image-truth and illusion battle.

Nix has shown her work at White Columns, New York, and most recently had a solo exhibition at UCR California Museum of Photography, Riverside, CA. A wonderful (sample) collection of [11] works by Lori Nix can be viewed after the jump, along with a video. more…