Pop surrealist Camille Rose Garcia has opened an astonishing show of paintings at New York's Jonathan LeVine Gallery. Garcia's psychedelic visions depict an interzone of the insane where charming entities enact a paranoiac's fairy tale. Or something like that. The exhibition, titled Ambien Somnambulants, runs through October 4 and is also viewable online. Seen here, "Night of the Sleepwitch" (Acrylic, Silver Leaf and Glitter on Panel, 33 x 40 inches). From the gallery:
In Ambien Somnambulants, tragic sleepwalkers wander along beautifully bleak post-apocalyptic dreamscapes, inspiring dissent from a dire dystopia. Garcia’s stunningly subversive images expand upon her signature style of elaborate socio-political narratives, hidden beneath layers of fairy-tale charm. The artist creates human and animal characters, influenced by a vintage animation aesthetic, which aid in her epic visual storytelling, rendered in a palette of psychedelic color, glitter, and glazed-over collaged wallpaper. Her use of bright color serves as a visual distraction from painful realities, while her use of silver leaf as a decorative element, references an age of abundance and opulence, slightly tarnished to represent the twilight years of our civilization.Camille Rose Garcia: "Ambien Somnambulants" (Jonathan Levine Gallery)