Travis A. Louie. Acrylic on Board.

September 14, 2007 5:29 AM

Travis A. Louie makes some really lush paintings of unlikely human oddities in the style of vintage black and white photo portraits. The frameset navigation is horrible, so here are some samples: Goblin in a Formal Dress circa 1893. Karl the Original Humanzee. Sir Reginald Whiskers McPherson. Emily. Archibald Langston circa 1897. Jack "Toothy" McPherson. Frank.

Mentioned in Projects. Via.
posted by jiiota (10 comments total)

I don't remember giving this guy permission to do my portrait.

Good stuff!
posted by SteveInMaine at 5:42 AM on September 14, 2007

These are amazing. Thank you.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:21 AM on September 14, 2007

Related, a previous post I did on Jon Beinart's extraordinary site with a different url. It's a spectacular collection of surreal and fantastic art of all kinds and he deserves recognition for putting such an amazing collection together. And I love his art too!
posted by nickyskye at 7:24 AM on September 14, 2007

*haven't had enough coffee yet, oops, last comment posted before it was cooked. Travis A. Louie's art is wonderful! Cool post jiiota.
posted by nickyskye at 7:29 AM on September 14, 2007

I love these--thank you for a great post! Before I clicked on the links, I was expecting much more grotesque images, but they are actually very sympathetic renderings that give dignity to their (fictional) subjects. And yes, "Goblin" is very endearing!

These paintings also remind me of Chris Van Allsburg's work.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:33 AM on September 14, 2007

That McPherson clan live under power lines or sumthin'?
posted by quite unimportant at 12:40 PM on September 14, 2007

Hurdy Gurdy, it reminds me of Chris Van Allsburg very much too. I'm glad you said that. I think Allsburg works in pencil though, right? These paintings felt very much like pencil to me, too.
posted by jiiota at 1:21 PM on September 14, 2007

I like how Mark Ryden's bio calls his work "Pop Surrealism," because that's how I see this kind of Juxtapos-style of art...it's not a put down at all; I love this kind of stuff; it's just that I have a soft spot in my heart for Surrealism. At least this stuff isn't the Fantasy unicorn art often called surrealism. Now, that gets my dander up.
posted by kozad at 1:47 PM on September 14, 2007

jilota: Re: Chris Van Allsburg--yes, I think he does work in pencil. And at first when I saw these paintings I was sure they were pencil as well, but then I re-read your post title and realized they were indeed done in acrylics! Makes it even more amazing.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 8:15 PM on September 14, 2007

Thanks for the links to this really amazing artist. I would never have know about him otherwise. They look like they could have been done last week.
posted by 1a2b3c at 11:59 AM on October 10, 2007