Colossal art

If Marija Tiurina’s latest watercolor appears to be a random mishmash of dreamy scenes, that’s because it is. The London-based illustrator (previously) recently completed “The Lockdown Project,” a dense composition inspired by dozens of submissions she collected during the first few weeks of quarantine. Complete with childhood memories, dreams, and colloquialisms, the illustration depicts a rich network of bizarre characters and fictional tales that flow organically between scenes. More

The troupe of wild animals in Bruno Pontiroli’s paintings contort their bodies into backbends and handstands that would rival even the most accomplished gymnast. A wrinkly hippo balances on its tongue, a tiger arches its torso into a 90-degree angle, and a hyena rotates its hind legs in the air. The French artist (previously) notes that he begins the bizarre artworks with easily-recognized animals that he then shapes “like the way a child plays with modeling clay or a building set for…

Bruno Pontiroli creates mind-bending explorations of the relationship between humans and animals, painting limber cows doing impressive handstands or an over-eager man embracing a large walrus, much to its chagrin. The artist shies away from labeling his work as Surrealist or Dadaist, instead proposing a new version of reality without categorization. Pontiroli will exhibit work with Galerie Klaus Kiefer at art KARLSRUHE from February 21 to 24, 2019 and with Fousion Gallery at Urvanity Art…

At the Direktorenhaus Museum in Berlin this past week, a solo exhibition of detailed architectural drawings by Virginia-based artist Benjamin Sack (previously) opened to the public. Titled Labyrinths, the collection of new works features vast cityscapes comprised of impossible inner-geometries. The maze-like urban maps reference musical compositions and various symbols found in cosmology. Often creating based on what he calls a “fear of blank spaces,” Sack tells Colossal that his starting…

Michael Kerbow is an artist based in San Francisco who works in a variety of mediums including painting, assemblage, drawing and digital photography. Of particular note are his large oil and acrylic paintings that depict surreal and at times nightmarish visions of the future, where industry and human development has grown without regulation or care for the environment. Kerbow shares via email: My work explores the way in which we engage with our surroundings and the possible consequences our…

Illustrator Felicia Chiao balances out her work as an industrial designer at IDEO with imaginative drawings rendered in copic marker and gel ink pens. Chiao’s fanciful worlds are populated with a repeating humanoid protagonist, as well as spirit-like black figures reminiscent of the symbolic creatures in Hayao Miyazaki films. The artist balances her charming aesthetic—cheerful details like daisies and friendly worms—with more evocative emotional themes. “Illustration has always been a way…

Ecuadorian artist Beto Val alchemizes vintage illustrations into bizarre compositions that blend fruits with fowl and aquatic life with land animals. Using imagery available through the public domain, Val cuts and repositions fins, wings, and scaly talons into surreal creatures: round owl faces peer out from pineapples, autumn leaves sprout from tropical birds, and a rendering evocative of a biological chart displays fish with bodies made of strawberries, brains, and an early, industrial…

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ArtStation is the leading showcase platform for games, film, media & entertainment artists.

With a wildly surreal imagination, artist Rustam QBic from Kazan, Russia creates fish adorned with houses and windows, elephants sprouting giant buildings, and a goose whose feathers are made from a ocean of angry waves. Almost every one of his creations, be it on paper or on a wall is brimming with wonderful ideas and often have to be viewed up close to appreciate their full detail. He most recently completed murals for the LGZ Festival and for Art-Ovrag 2013, and you can see many more…