Savage Surrealism: The Art of Roland Topor

As a little kid growing up in France I had little exposure to art or culture. I was however, without knowing it, already interested in drawing and painting. French television at this time had only 3 channels (I don’t think they have that many more today) and I remember clearly being shocked and intrigued when artist Roland Topor started showing his strange surrealist style in TV programs for adults and even for kids. I think it left on my mind a strong impression and influences my taste in art to this day. Roland Topor was a painter, an illustrator, a writer and a filmmaker and created the most bogus and fascinating kid’s program I have ever seen called “Telechat”. Here you can see his portrait and a sample of his illustrations:














There is not very much on the net about him but here are a couple of links. One a Facebook page and the other on Wikipedia.

The Digital Art of Maggie Taylor

I discovered Maggie Taylor’s art only this morning and immediately fell under her spell. She uses photography, a computer and a scanner to compose haunting images with a surrealistic vision. Here is a sample of her work, you can see more of it on her very magical site.

Girl in a Bee Dress


The Rehearsal


Mood Lifter


Boys with Thinking Caps


The Beacon

The Artist Statement. We are kind of faking it.

"If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint" -Edward Hopper


" An artist cannot talk about his art more than a plant can discuss horticulture" -Jean Cocteau


Have you ever been to an art exhibit and seen a mysterious, beautiful and clever piece of art? Wanting to know more about the intention of the artist you started reading the artist statement only to find yourself more puzzled and slightly put off by the overly sophisticated language, complicated sentences and annoyingly confusing paragraph?
My guess is that more often than not artists have no clue why they create the art they create.
They only know that they are naturally compelled to paint or draw or take pictures but trying to explain why seems completely unnatural. Check out this hilarious video, it clearly demonstrates what we are going through when writing the dreaded artist statement:

Garden of Eden

Artist Irene Hardwicke Olivieri has a lot to say. She says it in her paintings with lines of text in tiny letters running along the curves of naked women. She also says it with armies of bugs and caterpillars or tiny critters running along the trees and also great big beasts. Her paintings are a lush description of nature, often made on pieces of wood or doors, I love the naive quality of it.