Contemporary art: Surrealism, Updated.

Greetings, art lovers, salutations, surrealism admirers.

Remember Salvador Dali? He remembers you too. 

A true master of his craft, he once admitted that Surrealism was a destructive force, of which he was in complete and total control, unleashing its power to rid of the shackles, limiting the vision of his art viewers. It could be so. 

There were others that saw the movement as a reawakening of the poetic idea in art, the reintroduction of the subject, in a very particular sense, that of the strange and illogical. 

To me, as an eccentric, Surrealism has always been a view of the world. In others. And only recently that I began thinking of it as a resolution of two states: dream and reality. More than contradictory.

“…into a kind of absolute reality, a surreality, if one may so speak.”- Andre Breton once said.

For J.L.King, a young, talented, San Francisco-born artist, Surrealism is one of the means of intelligent provocation in people around: the questions, the never ending curiosity, the laughter, the weirdness. The artist believes that it is the weirdness, the unexplainable ways, in which the viewers are attracted to her artworks, that makes her feel a genuine connection with them. The viewers keep coming back to either spent some time in Ms. King’s reality, or learn some more about the artist’s dreams.

Where did those figures come from?  In Jennifer’s paintings, they are faceless, lacking facial expressions, anonymous. All done with a purpose of developing more curiosity in the viewer, make the figures easier to connect to, make people, gazing at the art piece, smile or even laugh.

“I take humor in my art pretty seriously,”- the artist said. 

Brilliant strategy. Even the ones that may not understand her art, would always feel the power of humor. The ones that can’t hear, would hear her art’s loud messages. The ones broken down by their own reality, would leave, at least, a little happier by catching a glimpse of the artist’s.

Remember Van Gogh? He never forgets you. 

No, he is not a surrealist. But he said something so touching once, he’s been quoted for centuries.

“There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” 

All art pieces are by J.L.King.