Uploaded March 2024 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Daniel Bilmes is a contemporary painter, working in Los Angeles. His approach is characterized by deep personal exploration, combining realism with elements of symbolism and abstraction. Through tactile textures and delicate expressions, his paintings weave together the magical and mundane. His work is at once hopeful and brooding. Realistic and symbolic. Somewhere between the vitality of the Russian circus and the gravitas of a Churchill speech.
Daniel began his art education at the age of 8 under the tutelage of his father, the respected artist and educator, Semyon Bilmes. Being immersed in art from such an early age had a profound impact on his personal growth and creativity, laying a lasting foundation of curiosity that continues to drive and inform his work today.
[from:danielbilmes.com/bio]
Music: Alio Die "Yearning In Beauty"
Daniel Bilmes is a contemporary painter, working in Los Angeles. His approach is characterized by deep personal exploration, combining realism with elements of symbolism and abstraction. Through tactile textures and delicate expressions, his paintings weave together the magical and mundane. His work is at once hopeful and brooding. Realistic and symbolic. Somewhere between the vitality of the Russian circus and the gravitas of a Churchill speech.
Daniel began his art education at the age of 8 under the tutelage of his father, the respected artist and educator, Semyon Bilmes. Being immersed in art from such an early age had a profound impact on his personal growth and creativity, laying a lasting foundation of curiosity that continues to drive and inform his work today.
[from:danielbilmes.com/bio]
Music: Alio Die "Yearning In Beauty"
![Vladimir Kush
Welcome to the world of Vladimir Kush, where myth, metaphor and poetry combine in new forms. Through the juxtaposition of previously unrelated objects and the exploration of different viewpoints, the artist’s work makes reference to deeper meanings and metaphors, while still maintaining its realistic approach to representation, a style he refers to as Metaphorical Realism.
Vladimir Kush was born and grew up in Moscow, Russia. His father Oleg, a mathematician with artistic tendencies, encouraged his son’s natural talent at an early age. He also did his best to provide Vladimir with books of romantic travel by hard-to-get (and sometimes banned) authors such as Jules Verne, Jack London and Herman Melville, in the hopes that his mind would wander outside the grey world that encompassed him. At the age of seven, Kush began the formal training that led him to the Art Institute of Moscow where he furthered his mastery of color theory, composition, oils, and art techniques of all kinds. The school put forth what could be called the Cezanne method, and though Vladimir quickly mastered it, he then left it behind because form was lost in color and emotion took over where he felt the intellect should rightly roam.
After a mandatory stint in the Russian Army where he mostly kept busy painting large murals and portraits of generals, he briefly taught at his alma mater but found he could make more money (and have enough free time to explore his newly forming style) by painting portraits on the streets. It was there that he made connections with American embassy workers who helped ease his transition to the US after his first successful show in Germany in 1990 brought him to Los Angeles and eventually Hawaii, his home today.
Vladimir still visits Moscow often where the cold, dark winters force his imagination to roam, but the influence of the Hawaiian skies is readily apparent in many of his paintings. He sums it up for us: “Due to political and geographic restraints, I was forced to travel with my mind as a child, and it is this most of all that has shaped my artistic perception and voice, but I would likely never have painted the colors or clouds seen in my paintings if it hadn’t been for the sights of my tropical, second home.”
Kush has developed his own artistic credo that substantiates his Metaphorical Realism and which, above all, demands the following:
• Likeness, which is the evidence of high professional skill—it makes the viewer believe in the world imagined by the artist, as realism does in fiction and film.
• Avoidance of actual living forms, presenting the aesthetic object rather than emotional subjects.
• The use of deep irony to reach real aesthetic enjoyment, and as hammer to break apart old myths whose pieces will then be re-assembled in new forms, a process known as re-mythologizing.
He explains further: “I want to touch my audience on a much deeper emotional or intellectual level than would be possible by painting a pretty landscape or still life where viewers are tempted to place themselves in the landscape, or consume the bowl of fruit—the goal of realism is also its limitation. I try to provide layers of meaning for viewers to explore and emotionally respond to the discoveries they find in my art.”
The artist reaches for the realm of the incomprehensible where his knowledge will not be enough. He substitutes unreachable realities with metaphysical images; he throws a veil, hiding the essence. Otherwise, science would intervene, disintegrating the image and its beauty into components…what then would happen to Mona Lisa’s famous smile?
[from:https://www.artifactsgallery.com/art.asp?%21=A&ID=762]
Music: Alio Die Honey Mushroom Part 1 Vladimir Kush](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DuCjP4smIjc/mqdefault.jpg)
![John Kenn Mortensen
Danish artist John Kenn Mortensen (also known as Don Kenn) writes and directs television shows for kids, but during his free time he pays tribute to the darker, spookier side of childhood filled with monsters and ghosts. Ugly, terrifying and bone-chilling monsters creep out of the darkest childhood nightmares and right into Kenn’s sticky notes. That’s right – the artist draws his highly imaginative little scenarios, where kids meet ghastly monsters, entirely on yellow post-its. In this contect, the creativity and intricacy of these little drawings truly leaves one in awe.
[from: https://www.demilked.com/creepy-childhood-monsters-sticky-notes-don-kenn/]
John Kenn Mortensen was born in 1978. He is a Danish artist who lives and works in Copenhagen. Mortensen is a master with pen and paper and his imagination is second to none. During the day, he employs these skills as an animator and director of children’s television programmes. But when darkness falls, he lets his imagination run wild, and from the nib of his pen flows a host of monsters, ghosts and ghouls, terrifying enough to give those who are faint of heart cause to double check that their doors are locked at night.
“I write and direct television shows for kids. I have a set of twins and not much time for anything. But when I have time, I draw monsterdrawings on post-it notes… it is a little window into a different world, made on office supplies. People will always be afraid of monsters. For some people, spiders are monsters… just very small monsters.It warms my heart when I am able to scare people or just give them the sense of having experienced a small adventure from something so simple as a drawing on a post-it note.There is this very fine moment right before you realize you are gonna be eaten by something you never thought existed. It is like when you get bad news and you think…I never thought this was gonna happen to me.” – John Kenn Mortensen
[from: https://wowxwow.com/artist-profile/john-kenn-mortensen]
Music: Alio Die & Antonio Testa Pie in the Sky John Kenn Mortensen](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DyOLyK984Aw/mqdefault.jpg)
![Luciana Lupe Vasconcelos
Luciana Lupe Vasconcelos (b.1982) is a brazilian artist whose work plunges on the realms of the mythical, mystical and occult. Lupe worked as a graphic designer, tattoo artist and children’s book illustrator before start pursuing her own particular artistic voice.
[from: http://www.lupevision.com/about]
Music: Alio Die & Aglaia Cumulus Congestus Luciana Lupe Vasconcelos](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/E9Hy5czF2gs/mqdefault.jpg)


![Sergei Chernenko
Sergei Chernenko artworks are compelling reflections of mysticism that enter a realm of vibrant abstraction, intricate depiction, and incandescence.
His canvases are filled with extraordinary figures and fantastic landscapes, illuminating a rich inner vision they characterise the unknown mysteries of existence and memorable vivid new worlds.
His meticulous brushwork and brilliant use of light show an intimacy with Goya, Breugal, and Rembrandt, while the imaginative panorama of subject matter suggest the strong influence of the more mystic surrealists, Bosch, Dali, and De Chirico.
Eastern spiritualism and Western academic realism form the back bone for Sergei`s philosophical framework, producing an alliance of spirit and substance. In the invisible borders of unfamiliar worlds, Sergei delves into the correlations of fear and joy, solitude and collision,
eternal peace and perpetual movement.
[from: http://www.russianartgallery.com/artist/Sergei-Chernenko/]
Music by Oöphoi Sergei Chernenko](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/EvlWDfc19Lw/mqdefault.jpg)
![Andrzej Pągowski (Polish Poster Art)
Andrzej Pągowski (born 1953 in Warsaw)is a Polish artist who specializes in graphic design and poster art.
Pągowski graduated from The State University of Fine Arts in Poznan in 1978 and began to design posters, which has since become his main interest. In addition to posters, he designs theatrical settings, prints and catalogues.
One of the younger of the Third Generation of artists of Polish School of Posters, he easily made the transition from socialism to capitalism; in 1990, he created his own graphic studio, STUDIO P, which developed into an advertising agency in 1993 and continues in operation today. In 1992, he had become art director of the Polish edition of Playboy.As an artist, his individualized posters evoke a range of moods and ideas. He claims to have created a separate concept for each of his many posters, saying: “Every poster for me is an individual exercise different from the previous one.” His art can be found in many European museums as well as the Museum of Modern Art in New York,.He has also had one-man shows in Stockholm, Paris, London, and Warsaw.
[from Wikipedia]
Music: Oophoi Endless Rain on Altair Andrzej Pągowski (Polish Poster Art)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/F53TmajzQjQ/mqdefault.jpg)
![Warwick Goble
Warwick Goble (22 November 1862 – 22 January 1943) was an illustrator of childrens books. He specialized in Japanese and Indian themes.
Goble was born in Dalston, north London, the son of a commercial traveller, and educated and trained at the City of London School and the Westminster School of Art. He worked for a printer specializing in chromolithography and contributed to the Pall Mall Gazette and the Westminster Gazette.
In the 1890s, he contributed half-tone illustrations to monthly magazines such as Strand Magazine, Pearsons Magazine, and The Boys Own Paper. In 1893, he was exhibiting at the Royal Academy. In 1896, he began illustrating books.In 1898, he was the first to illustrate H. G. Wellss The War of the Worlds, having illustrated it for Pearsons Magazine in 1897. He briefly continued with scientific romance themes.
In 1909, he became resident gift book illustrator for MacMillan and produced illustrations for The Water Babies, Green Willow, and Other Japanese Fairy Tales, The Complete Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, Stories from the Pentamerone, Folk Tales of Bengal, The Fairy Book, and The Book of Fairy Poetry. During World War I, he was employed in the drawing office of Woolrich Arsenal, and volunteered for service with the Red Cross in France. He worked occasionally for New York MacMillan, and produced editions of Treasure Island and Kidnapped. Goble gradually gave up illustration to pursue sculling, cycling, and travelling. He died in his Surrey home in 1943
[from Wikipedia]
Music: Harold Budd Templar Warwick Goble](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FQ-998Lcf4w/mqdefault.jpg)
![Franz Sedlacek
Franz Sedlacek (1891–1945) was an Austrian painter who belonged to the tradition known as New Objectivity (neue Sachlichkeit), an artistic movement similar to Magical Realism. At the end of the Second World War he disappeared as a soldier of the Wehrmacht somewhere in Poland.
Franz Sedlacek was born in Breslau on 21 January 1891, and moved with his family to Linz in 1897. In 1909 he graduated from the Royal High School at the Fadingerstraße. A year later, he moved to Vienna and studied architecture and chemistry. After serving in World War I, he completed his studies and in 1921 began working at the Technical Museum of Vienna.
In 1923, Sedlacek married Maria Albrecht. The couple raised two daughters.
In 1913, Sedlacek founded an artistic association in Linz with Anton Lutz, Klemens Brosch, Franz Bitzan, and Heinz Bitzan. Sedlacek began as a graphic artist, and later turned to oil painting.
In 1925 he produced a number of watercolours for Claire Annabel Caroline Grant Duffs Book The Unicorn.
In 1927, Sedlacek joined the Viennese Secession, an association of artists that was founded by Gustav Klimt and others in 1897.
A collection of his works is on exhibition at the Leopold Museum in the Museumsquartier in Vienna, Austria, including the 1931 painting, Lied in der Dämmerung (Song in the Twilight), as well as in the Albertina Museum.
[from Wikipedia]
Music: Goldmund Turncoat Franz Sedlacek](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FSVyR2ApITI/mqdefault.jpg)
![Claude Verlinde
Claude Verlinde is a French painter who works in the vein of fantastic realism, sometimes called magic realism, and his work shows the lineage of fantastical art from Bruegel and Bosch to the Surrealists and contemporary magic realists.
His often darkly themed works employ the dark earth tones of the early Renaissance, as well as some of the visual staging and precise rendering characteris.
[from: https://www.askart.com/artist_bio/Cla...]
Music: Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd Smiling Apart Claude Verlinde](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FUVXyonn4ok/mqdefault.jpg)
![Harry Clarke
Harry Clarke (17 March 1889 – 6 January 1931) was an Irish stained-glass artist and book illustrator. Born in Dublin, he was a leading figure in the Irish Arts and Crafts Movement.
Henry Patrick (Harry) Clarke was born 17 March 1889, younger son and third child of Joshua and Brigid Clarke (née MacGonigal).Church decorator Joshua Clarke moved to Dublin from Leeds in 1877 and started a decorating business Joshua Clarke & Sons, which later incorporated a stained glass division. Through his work with his father, Clarke was exposed to many schools of art but Art Nouveau in particular.
Clarke was schooled at Model Schools, Marlborough St. and subsequently Belvedere College, although he left that college in 1905 following the death of his mother in 1903.Clarke was then apprenticed into his fathers studio, whilst also attending evening classes in the Dublin Art School. It was during this time that his The Consecration of St Mel, Bishop of Longford, by St Patrick won the gold medal for stained glass work in the 1910 Board of Education National Competition.
Whilst studying at the Dublin Art School, Clarke met fellow artist and teacher Margaret Crilley. They married on 31 October 1914 and moved into a flat at 33 North Frederick Street, and went on to have three children, Michael, David and Ann.
Having completing his education, Clarke moved to London, where he sought employment as a book illustrator. Picked up by London publisher Harrap, he started with two commissions which were never completed: Samuel Taylor Coleridges The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (his work on which was destroyed during the 1916 Easter Rising) and an illustrated edition of Alexander Popes The Rape of the Lock.
Difficulties with these projects made Hans Christian Andersens Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen his first printed work, however, in 1916—a title that included 16 colour plates and more than 24 halftone illustrations. This was closely followed by an illustrations for an edition of Edgar Allan Poes Tales of Mystery and Imagination: the first version of that title was restricted to halftone illustrations, while a second iteration with eight colour plates and more than 24 halftone images was published in 1923.
The latter of these made his reputation as a book illustrator, and this was during the golden age of gift-book illustration in the first quarter of the twentieth century: Clarkes work can be compared to that of Aubrey Beardsley, Kay Nielsen, and Edmund Dulac. It was followed by editions of The Years at the Spring, containing 12 colour plates and more than 14 monotone images; (Lettice DO. Walters, ed., 1920), Charles Perraults Fairy Tales of Perrault, and Goethes Faust, containing eight colour plates and more than 70 halftone and duotone images (New York: Hartsdale House,1925). The last of these is perhaps his most famous work, and prefigures the disturbing imagery of 1960s psychedelia. Two of his most sought-after titles include promotional booklets for Jameson Irish Whiskey: A History of a Great House (1924, and subsequent reprints) and Elixir of Life (1925), which was written by Geofrey Warren. His final book, Selected Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne, was published in 1928.
Both Harry and his brother Walter were plagued with ill health, in particular problems with their lungs. Clarke had been diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1929, and had begun to spend time in a sanatorium in Davos, Switzerland. With his health continuing to decline, and fearing that he would die in a foreign country, Clarke began his journey back to Dublin in 1931. Clarke died on this journey on 6 January 1931 in Chur, where he was buried.
[from Wikipedia]
Music by Robert Rich Harry Clarke](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FW_m6Fmcjqo/mqdefault.jpg)