Otherwise known as Louise, Art&Ghosts creates stunning digital paintings/illustration. She uses photoshop /wacom combo to meticulously handcolor each image.These are inspired from a plethora of sources, including fairytales, mythology, dolls, spectres, dreams and nature….

Some Art&Ghosts facts:

My images usually begin with a photograph, a painting or a doll portrait. I buy many dolls then sell them on for this reason alone (so fickle!), although i do possess a somewhat overbearing collection of plastic animals, dolls house furniture and vintage frocks. My backgrounds are generally my own paintings or textures that i have created or photographed. Although most of my ‘completed’ work is digital, my sources are rather ecclectic at best. - louise

See an incredible array of these beautiful works by Louise after the jump more…

Chivalry Towards Ladies, C-Print 33″x 30″, 2007

Swedish-born Chris Anthony combines a 4 x 5 camera, a scanner and Photoshop to create a haunting and disconcerting world where violence is forever lurking in the shadows. Although Anthony works primarily as commercial and music photographer, he made these eerily atmospheric portraits for a personal project. “This was part of a series of 27 images called Victims and Avengers,” says Anthony, “It deals with domestic violence and the repercussions for women and children who have been abused. It also relates to that moment when there is a final straw — when the victims take matters into their own hands.”

The Parker Palm Springs (Bethany) Clothing: Glaza MakeUp: Melanie Manson Hair: Boogie

Staff at American Photo state: Anthony’s photographs combine these themes with a painterly, 19th-century aesthetic. The 24×60-inch prints were shown at the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City, California, in early 2007; another individual show will run there from January 26 through February 16. His work has earned critical accolades, including a 2007 Lucie Award nomination. Anthony shot these images in 4×5 but says that scans were digitally stitched together as composites before they were output on an Epson Stylus Pro 7800 inkjet printer. “The compositing came out of necessity, because sometimes I would have the set in one place and the actors in the other,” Anthony explains. “Most of the models are actually film actors I know here in Los Angeles.”

A former film and video director, Anthony has shot commercial work for clients including Sony PlayStation 3 and the bands My Chemical Romance and Modest Mouse. He sometimes uses a Mamiya medium-format camera with a digital back, but he prefers to work in large format on film. “I love the slow, methodical approach,” he says. “I’ve been buying really old lenses — like from the turn of the century — and using them with my 5×7 and 8×10 cameras. Everything old is new again.”

More of Chris Anthony’s beautiful, macabre and thought-provoking series of photographs can be seen after the jump. more…

No Neutral Thoughts, oil on canvas, 2008. 24 x 24 inches

Eric’s painting skills are truly unbelievable to say the least. His work transcends time, reality, science and logic. It is rich in content and is visually mind blowing. He finds inspiration in metaphysics, with trace hints of iconic pop culture of years past. - Manuel Bello

Brooklyn-based painter Eric White creates “traditional based” imagery from an unusual approach to figuration. White references found imagery (particularly from 40s era Hollywood) in works that are thought-provoking, beautifully rendered and also disturbing on many different levels. This approach enables the artist to tap into realities and dimensions that exist beyond the edge of our perception; in a world in which movie stars, political figures, and ordinary people are transformed: stretched and distorted and placed in bizarre landscapes. In all his creations White employs a meticulous mix of hyper-realism and surrealism to make his dark dreams.

Our Beloved Ganesa, oil on canvas

Eric White has shown extensively in galleries and museums such as The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Gracie Mansion in New York, Robert Berman and Track 16 in Los Angeles, and Moda Politica in Tokyo. His work is sought after by a wide range of collectors including Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Pacino, David Arquette and Courteney Cox.

View more of Eric White’s exceedingly inviting imagery after the jump. more…

Headache

stop… whispering. Beautiful words, tear my brains….

Mario Sanchez Nevado (pseudonym of Aegis) is an digital artist born in Murcia (Spain), who creates some impressive photo-manipulated artwork. His art is a lush combination of traditional and digital drawing, vectorial art and photographs. This is dark and surreal imagery, combined with conceptual themes as Mario works within many diverse styles and genres. Equally integrated is his use of digital softwares: Photoshop, Corel Painter, Marinates Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand, Dreamweaver - all contribute to the completed designs.

Absent Minded

Hidden Front

See more of Mario Sanchez’s fantastic imagery after the jump. more…

Evolution of Language, Oil on birch, 30 x 20 inches | Lost Constellations - Oil on Birch , 40 x 30 inches

San Francisco born (raised in Los Angeles) Tara McPherson is a painter, poster artist and freelance illustrator based out of New York City. She creates art about people and their oddities, her characters exude an idealized innocence with a glimpse of hard earned wisdom in their eyes. Recalling many issues from childhood and good old life experience, she creates images that are thought provoking and seductive. People and their relationships are a central theme throughout her body of work. Tara exhibits her paintings and prints in fine art galleries all over the world. Her site is here, and her first solo exhibition: Lost Constellations at Jonathan LeVine Gallery is currently showing. From the LeVine….

The painted portraits in Lost Constellations depict adventurous super-heroines from an alternate universe, crossing dimensional planes of time and space. McPherson considers the idea of parallel existence through the use of multiple views or angles on a subject, inspired by the Einstein cross (a phenomenon caused by gravitational lensing) while her series of bodily transfigurations convey principles on the physical manifestation of thought. A reoccurring cast of female characters appear in various states of action—fighting battles and growing toward self-discovery. Using her signature bold and graphic style, Tara’s imagery explores love, loss and loneliness through variations on strength, vulnerability and female empowerment. Concepts of non-verbal communication and the evolution of spoken language are explored as well, along with an interpretation on the circle of life—represented through transitional properties of water particles: gas, liquid and solid.

How Easily They Fly Away, Oil on birch, 30 x 24 inches

Somewhere Under The Rainbow, pink & turquoise, Oil on birch, 24 x 12 inches each

Vegetarian Girl (Detail). 2007, oil on canvas

Ling Jian studied painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, moving shortly thereafter to Germany where he still lives and works. He has exhibited extensively in Germany and throughout Europe (FIAC, Art RAI Amsterdam). His work was included in the group exhibition, Scent of a Woman which traveled to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Having gained prominence with his series entitled, ‘Communist Sister’, Ling Jian has explored the evolution of Chinese cultural identity as symbolized in many of his fantastical images. The women, depicted in a provocative and highly sexual style, are at odds with the conservative and rational reality of the true Communist female soldier. In creating this hypothetic, and very clearly contradictory set of images, Ling Jian addresses the wider issues at stake for the Chinese people, and in particular, the role of women in this changing society.

Show me what you have, 2007, oil on canvas

See more of Ling’s work after the jump. Happy Valentines Day to ALL paintalicious readers. more…