Distorted Perception - Dain Yoon

 By Jonathan Shih

Dain Yoon is a South Korean artist known for transforming her own face and body into striking optical illusions. Using paint and makeup as her primary tools, she creates surreal effects that distort perception—merging facial features with objects, multiplying forms, or blending seamlessly with her surroundings. Each piece is crafted by hand and can take hours to complete, with minimal reliance on digital editing. Her work gained international attention around 2016 as it spread widely online, highlighting the creative potential of illusion art through performance, photography, and visual experimentation.

©️ dainyoon.com

Nothing Lasts Forever by Peter Mitchell

 

A selection of images by Peter Mitchell, the British documentary photographer renowned for capturing Leeds, England, in vivid color during the 1970s and 1980s. Born in Manchester in 1943, Mitchell moved to Leeds in 1972 and began documenting the city while working as a truck driver and running a print workshop. From shopfronts and demolition sites to quiet residential streets, his photographs record a city in transition.

Often regarded as a pioneer of British color photography, Mitchell combined documentary clarity with wit and storytelling. His long-term focus on Leeds has created one of the most distinctive visual records of urban change in late 20th-century Britain.

©️ strangelyfamiliar.co.uk

The Way of Silence

By Jonathan Shih

The Way of Silence, circa 1903. Painted by František Kupka (1871–1957).

This is a profoundly atmospheric Symbolist work that evokes a meditation on solitude, memory, and the metaphysical passage of time. A solitary figure moves slowly along a nocturnal avenue flanked by monumental stone sphinxes, whose repeated, silent forms suggest both guardianship and the weight of eternity. Bathed in cold, silvery light beneath a star filled sky, the scene dissolves the boundary between architecture and dream, transforming the landscape into an interior, psychological space. The painting reflects Kupka’s early spiritual and philosophical preoccupations and anticipates his lifelong search for deeper, immaterial realities beyond the visible world.

A Memory Just Out Of Reach

By Jonathan Shih

At first glance, it looks like a foggy window. But look again, it’s a painting.

German artist Jochen Mühlenbrink is known for his hyper-realistic trompe-l’œil works that mimic condensation and blur our view like a memory just out of reach. His pieces don’t just fool the eye, they tap into something deeper. That childlike urge to draw on a fogged-up window. That dreamy space between what we see and what we feel.

Follow @jochenmuehlenbrink for more illusionary magic.

Ice Sculptures by Andy Goldsworthy

By Jonathan Shih

Andy Goldsworthy is a British Land Art artist known for his ephemeral works made from natural materials found on site. Since the late 1970s, he has created ice sculptures by fusing icicles with snow, water, and even the warmth of his hands. These delicate geometric forms interact with light and melt naturally, often lasting only hours or days. Photography is essential to his practice, capturing each work at its most vital moment, as Goldsworthy views natural decay and disappearance as integral to the artwork itself.

©️ andygoldsworthystudio.com

The Artist Who Let Silence Speak

By Jonathan Shih

Mariusz Lewandowski was a Polish surrealist painter born in 1960 in Działdowo, northeastern Poland. He became known for haunting oil paintings filled with symbolic figures, vast dreamlike landscapes, and apocalyptic moods drawn from his inner world and the natural surroundings of Warmia and Masury. Lewandowski deliberately refused to explain his work, offering only titles and leaving meaning entirely to the viewer, believing art was strongest when discovered personally.

From 2017 onward, his paintings reached a wider audience through album covers for metal bands such as Bell Witch, eventually appearing on dozens of releases, including projects linked to Sony Music Entertainment. His imagery also crossed into skate culture through a limited collaboration with Zero Skateboards in 2021. Lewandowski passed away in July 2022, leaving behind a body of work defined by technical mastery, layered symbolism, and a lasting commitment to mystery.

© lewandowski.art

The Inner Worlds of Remedios Varo

By Jonathan Shih

Remedios Varo was a central figure in Surrealism and Latin American fantastic art, and an essential presence in the Mexican art scene of the mid-20th century.

Born in Catalonia, Varo was part of a group of European artists who had close ties to Surrealism before settling in Mexico City. During the 1940s and 1950s, the city became an important center for abstract and fantastic art, shaped through salons, informal gatherings, and galleries that encouraged discussion and exchange. Notably, the meetings held at the apartment Varo shared with poet Benjamin Péret brought together figures such as Leonora Carrington, Alice Rahon, Wolfgang Paalen, and photographers Kati and José Horna. During this period, and until her death in 1963, Varo produced her most significant works.