Mia Mäkilä

Mia, born 1979, is an Art Historian, painter, photographer, and mixed media/digital collage artist from Norrköping, in eastern Sweden.

She describes her work as horror pop surrealism or dark lowbrow. When asked to describe herself, she is fond of responding:

"Picture Pippi Longstocking and Swedish movie director Ingmar Bergman having a love child. That's me."

She is a self taught artist in a constant state of learning, and trying new things. Her work is heavily inspired by film directors such as David Lynch, Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock, Roy Andersson, Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton; as well as artists like Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel, Francisco Goya, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mark Ryden, Marion Peck, and the masters of Disney Studio's in the 1930's-40's. She also collaborates with Gus Fink (the Creeplings Project).

Specific psychological aspects of her personality heavily influence her art: a passionate loner that dislikes traveling, is decidedly neurotic, scared of numerous things, and extremely afraid to die--not to mention living in a haunted house.

Beyond this, Mäkilä defines her genre as a kind of new Victorianism that is darkly erotic, grotesque, yet beautiful, and a fan of black humor. Her view of artists are as magicians, not moneymakers, and she abhors dishonest, deceitful people.

The goals she strives for through her work is to exorcise the personal demons of grief, sadness, pain, anger, rage, hurt, confusion, shame, and desire. Most of her work consists of acrylics, vintage photographs, paper cut outs, and charcoal, along with a few secret techniques.

Mia's website can be found here, and her blog is here.

Khoda

This is an extremely cool and painstaking animation project by Reza Dolatabadi and Adam Thomson.

Dolatabadi combined 6,000, yes, 6,000 paintings together over a two year period which were then made into an animation by Thomson. This project has won numerous awards in festivals all over the world.

Reza Dolatabadi's website can be found here.



Adam Thomson's portfolio can be found here.



Khoda from Reza Dolatabadi on Vimeo.

Paul Gerrard

Paul Gerrard (also known as Sallow) is an amazing freelance digital artist, and the Art Director for UBISOFT, in the UK. Some of his work pays homage to the likes of Beksiński and H.R. Giger but with its own direction and unique vision.

In addition, he contributes his talents to Film Concept art, illustration, CD cover work, and computer game art 2D/3D. From his imagination emerge entire worlds of fantastic creatures and landscapes that reveal the very archetypes which seduce, guide, destroy the human psyche.

On one of his websites, Butterfly Soldiers, he provides us a glimpse into the characters he creates:

"At one point in my life I went looking for these connections, a path if u like, through this I met people whose similar quests had led some of them to connections with Angels, some the Green Goddess, some Native American culture and even some in voodoo. I felt drawn to none, interested in all. Clarity hit me, isn't it all the same, every god worships, every deity spirit calling, isn't it just a way of tuning yourself into something.. Something? Energy, a high (or lower) form of consciousness. It's all a matter of interpretation, what works for one, how your mind interprets what this something has to offer."

Gerrard's work and portfolio can be found on a number of sites:
Butterfly Soldiers
CG Society
deviantART
Blogspot
MySpace
Linked In

In collaboration with Edward Fox, Paul also creates Industrial music/soundscapes in their project Foxgerhard.

Joel-Peter Witkin

Witkin is a photographer and artist who was born in Brooklyn, New York, 1939.

His twin brother, Jerome, is a well known artist as well, but chose painting as his medium of expression. Few, if any, people ever gaze upon a Witkin tableaux without strong reactions. He's been lauded as depraved, perverted, mentally disturbed; while others hail his work as divine, fearless and completely unique.

For three years he was a war photographer during the Vietnam war, later becoming the official photographer in 1967 for City Walls Inc. After studying sculpture at Cooper Union in New York, he became Bachelor of Arts in 1974. Due, in part, to a scholarship from Columbia University, he became Master of Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico.

While a small child, on his way to church with his family, an event occurred that altered his life forever. He, along with his twin brother, witnessed a horrific three car accident in front of his house. Immediately after the crash an object rolled across the street, stopping at his feet. When he looked down, it was the decapitated head of a little girl, her vacant eyes staring up at him. While attempting to bend down and talk to "her" he was carried away from the scene.

Subsequently, a large portion of his art deals with scenes of death and deformity. Some of his most controversial work includes actual corpses and cadavers (or pieces of them). Because of specific laws within the U.S., he was forced to create these pieces in Mexico.

Other themes and subjects in his art include dwarfs, hermaphrodites, hunchbacks, and various physical deformities--as well as images that suggest bestiality, although never crossing that particular line. Much of his work hearkens back, or pays tribute to, famous classical paintings, mythology, and religious episodes throughout history.

Witkin creates his highly complex pieces using a variety of techniques. Some of these include scratching the negative, bleaching, toning the print, and what's called a hands-in-the-chemicals approach. He also employs the use of razor blades, pins, and other implements in the darkroom to achieve the final look.

While viewing Joel's art, a paradox often emerges as to what his "message" or intent actually is. Conflicting and seemingly unrelated objects and scenarios are conjoined in such a way as to appear to make sense. But as soon as one begins to form into words what that relationship is, it all falls apart, defying a rational explanation.

Witkin not only transcends categories, he does not even exist in one. He is outside of the box, and we, the viewers, are only allowed a peak, however briefly. There are many websites featuring Joel's work, a few of which I have listed here:

Edelman Gallery
Masters of Fine Art Photography
Tribute to a Genius

Majase Cyc Productions

Alrighty then...
I finally got a few of my video creations uploaded. They can be found at the bottom of this page.

Attention: they are not for the squeamish or weak-minded. Consider yourself duly warned.

Grzegorz Kmin (aspius)

This is yet another Polish artist from the Dark Realms that truly sow Seeds from Hell. Whether by coincidence, or twisted fate, many of the artists I've featured here are of Polish descent. The odd thing is during the massive amount of web surfing I engage in, looking for appropriate art on this blog, it is the art, in and of itself, that grabs me.

Initially, I have no idea where the artist is from, or, often enough, who they may be. This can only lead me to one conclusion: for whatever reason, the imaginations and talent from this region of the world is uniquely and categorically dark and twisted. Why this is I have no idea, but I'm continuously impressed by what I find from the Polish psyche.

As some of you know Zdzisław Beksiński is my all-time favorite and most respected artist, and happens to be Polish. I highlighted a feature of him on this blog several months ago, and I plan to do other features here as well. I think it's safe to say I would never repeat an artist on here--but, as always, Beksiński goes beyond all others for me, so expect more posts about this absolutely astounding artist.

OK, now let's cut to the bone with the current feature.

Grzegorz Kmin was born 1972 in Lodz, Poland. He also is known by the name aspius.


Originally a neurophysiologist by profession, after three years of turmoil in essentially ignoring his artistic bent, Grzegorz began working temporarily as a DTP operator and graphic designer. By 1998 he began in earnest pursuing his art with several trials and tribulations in what direction his life, and his art, were taking him. At this point he began devoting more and more of his time and energies to art and graphics.



Mr. Kmin describes his work as digital oils. Working freelance from home, he most often uses Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Poser 5.0, and filters in the KPT Collection. With PSD files as large as 2.65 GB he uses hundreds of layers that are then grouped together for facilitation into sets.



























Grzegorz has a very engaging and interesting site, Aspius-Art, and an extensive gallery on his deviantART page, which includes a few Flash Animation experiments; Sacrifice being my favorite thus far (HIGHLY recommended viewing).