Contemporary Surreal Paintings For Sale with Bold Expression and Emotional Impact

This is surreal art with a difference, created to intrigue, unsettle and invite you into another kind of world. Contemporary surreal paintings to fire your imagination. They are not decorative  - they offer you a new way of seeing the world. 

My Approach to Contemporary Surreal Painting

Direct and to the point

Surrealism, for me, is not about fantasy for its own sake. It is about expressing tension, memory, humour and concern. These contemporary surreal paintings are bold and deliberate. I am not seeking softness or dreamlike escape - I want impact and meaning.

Make Surrealism Unmissable with Colour and Form

Colour is used with strength. Form is controlled but never predictable. Each painting balances structure and emotion so that the viewer feels both curiosity and recognition but mostly a personal emotional reaction.

Geometry and Surrealism

You may notice the influence of geometric structure in many of these pieces. Geometry helps me express  tension and wonder inside surreal imagery. Sharp angles and geometric forms draw the viewer into the geometric surreal painting creating unpredictability and places to rest the eye which emerge own as if waiting to be discovered.

Two geometrical surreal paintings inspired by a visit to a gallery.

It was empty and quiet but resonated something I have attempted to capture in these two paintings. Is it quiet solitude or perhaps cold emptiness - you probably see something quite different.

Unintentional Surrealism - Exhibited in Canada

I did not intend to paint surrealism it just happened -  the brush seemed to find its own way I just hold it in space. They are appreciated though and exhibited widely including The Canadian  Society of Painters in Watercolour  as part of their annual open.

Femininity and Surrealism

These two surreal paintings are clearly of the female figure, perhaps a celebration of some kind, joy for certain I think.

Symbols in Surreal Art

Symbols such as ladders, scissors are powerful tools in making surreal art and they have become for all my work such as geometric abstraction and minimalist abstract paintings. My surrealism is not extreme distortion. I am not interested in deforming shapes for spectacle or whimsy. What matters to me is content — the underlying message and emotional tension carried within the image.

Surreal paintings about polluting our planet.

Surrealism is so right for the subject of pollution. The agony of the planet and the wanton destruction would be surreal if it was not so tragic. A painting can express horror and disgust from viewing it for just a few seconds, I want people to see how I feel about polluting our planet.

Why I paint surrealism

I did not set out to paint surreal images. They emerged naturally. I found myself taking real situations and shifting them beyond reality — not into fantasy for its own sake, but into something more intriguing. Once that process began, I could not stop.

My Aim as a Painter

It is always the same: to place a powerful emotion inside the artwork. Others may paint what they see I try to paint what I feel about what I see. Colour, structure and composition become vehicles for that feeling and surrealism the way to structure the art to effect. My blog post Getting Emotion into a Paintings expands on this point.