October 8, 2024

Beauty Arts

The Arts Authority

Commuters Go Wild in Matthew Grabelsky’s Uncanny Subway Paintings — Colossal

Commuters Go Wild in Matthew Grabelsky’s Uncanny Subway Paintings — Colossal

A painted portrait of a horse-human figure riding the subway

“Giddy Up” (2022), oil on canvas, 14 × 16 inches. All illustrations or photos courtesy of Thinkspace Assignments, shared with authorization

Urbanites know the subway is a prime spot to place the city’s oddities, and still, a operate-in with a single of Matthew Grabelsky’s characters would be a especially wild experience. The Los Angeles-dependent artist has expended the very last several several years rendering human-animal hybrids that nonchalantly ride public transit. Sometimes snacking on a cracker or brushing up on some looking through, the characters are surreal, uncanny additions to an if not mundane scene.

Grabelsky’s newest oil paintings, which are presently on check out as element of Riders at The Model Library & Art Center in Glendale, California, are hyperrealistic and laced with witty information similar to earlier works in the collection. Set on the New York Town Subway and London Tube, the portraits are narrative-pushed and embedded with pop culture references. The artist shares:

My objective is to build the effect of wanting at a scene on the subway as if it had been a diorama at a all-natural history museum. The photographs existing richly in-depth moments frozen in time letting the viewer to carefully inspect just about every component and make connections concerning them to read through an overall tale. In this world, persons are reworked into part-animal to create scenes that are bizarre, funny, and endearing.

Curated by Thinkspace Assignments, Riders is on watch through March 17. You can uncover an substantial assortment of Grabelsky’s commuters on his web-site and Instagram.

A painted portrait of a father and son human-monkey hybrids riding the subway

“Curious George Requires A Train” (2022), oil on canvas, 16 × 20 inches

On left, a painted portrait of a woman-crow figure on the subway, on the right, a painted portrait of a woman-parrot figure eating crackers on the subway

Left: “Crow-Magnon” (2022), oil on canvas, 28 × 38 inches. Suitable: “Polly Wanna Cracker” (2022), oil on canvas, 24 × 36 inches

A painted portrait of a dog-human hybrid riding the subway

“Texas Hold’em” (2022), oil on canvas, 12 × 16 inches

Left: A painted portrait of a wolf-human hybrid riding the subway. Right: A painted portrait of two panda-human hybrids riding the subway

Still left: “An American Werewolf In London” (2022), oil on canvas, 24 × 32 inches. Appropriate: “Sichuan Express” (2022), oil on canvas, 14 × 20 inches

A painted portrait of a bat-human figure riding the subway

“Gotham Local” (2022), oil on canvas, 12 × 16 inches

#animals
#humor
#Matthew Grabelsky
#portraits
#surreal

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