There was one particular time, I opened the Instagram app on my phone and was casually scrolling down my feed. Out of nowhere, this thought came to mind: my feed is boring. It’s mostly just portraits of people, a food tutorial, some rows of shades of liquid lipsticks, there’s nothing that amazes and captivates me. Luckily for me in high school, I learned about the different types of art in my art class and I fell in love with Surrealism.
What exactly is Surrealism? Surrealism is “a wild painting and writing style that creates images that might come from dreams, like a landscape with gold pocket-watches bending or an eyeball with clouds inside.“ For me, this is Surrealism defined in its most true form.
When searching for Surrealism on Google, paintings normally come up, such as Salvador Dali‘s The Persistence of Memory which is from 1931. There aren’t a lot of contemporary, new-age Surrealism pieces; the ones that turn a normal picture to something magical. So I got curious and started to search for Instagram accounts that are dedicated to posting surrealist edits and I loved these accounts straight away as I scrolled through their Instagram feeds. The five accounts I’m recommending are my current favourites. There are many accounts that post-surrealist photos but these particular artists’ works will blow your mind away.
Charlie Davoli
https://www.instagram.com/p/7FUDkWRxP1/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=wvp713slxtln
I had a hard time picking one of the many posts on his Instagram feed as every edit he makes is enchanting, like a feast for my eyes. He’s currently my favourite artist on Instagram, in a tie with the body painter, Alexa Meade. There’s just something about his art pieces that are very captivating. Charlie morphs and combines the land, sky, sea, and even outer space into his masterpieces, making every single one of his posts feel magical. On his Instagram account, you’ll definitely see photos that will blow your mind: from a woman casually standing in front of a mountain as jellyfishes swim on the clear sky to a man effortlessly surfing in the middle of the city as if it’s what he does every day to a couple dipping their feet on a lake as Jupiter looms gloriously in front of them. Charlie Davoli’s account is definitely worth following.
If you’re interested in seeing his portfolio and buying prints of his edits, you can check his official website: charliedavoli.com.
Luisa Azevedo
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRO1zyfAun2/
Different from Charlie Davoli’s surrealism style, Luisa Azevedo altered the laws of nature by bending how animals look; an origami cheetah, a fox with crystals growing on its back, a deer with its antlers shaped like a lion. One of my favourite edits of Azevedo’s is her Feather Collection post that looks minimalistic but yet still very impressive. I love how she has a consistent greyish-white background on majority her posts that create a misty feel in her edits. The post above is the edit that “changed her life.” This edit is beautiful and one of the first posts by Azevedo that made me a fan. With Luisa’s simple, minimalistic and creative ideas it makes her creations deserving of tons of appreciation. She wrote in her bio: “I don’t want realism. I want magic” and well, I think she gets what she wants by herself actually creating magic.
Jati Putra
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIaJ11pARgU/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=1i9t1yaxcrgqn
This Indonesian artist defies the laws of nature by changing the perspective of what our eyes would normally see, the natural shape of our surroundings. When I saw one of his edits for the first time, the first thing that came to mind was the Interstellar movie. At the end of the movie, there was the Cooper Station where the land was the shape of a cylinder, fields, and houses hung above the head, defying gravity. Now, Jati Putra has taken a similar yet a different turn. He bends and splits the shape of the earth into a trippy yet mesmerizing new reality. He usually turns the flat land or sea into a tidy 90° angle, a trippy obtuse angle, two right angles as seen above, sometimes a beautiful rectangular, and he also turns buildings into a wavy shape a few times.
Ilham Rambe
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIO9_vdAbeP/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=31glx78odfc3
This maestro from Indonesia primarily deforms faces or bodies of humans. His primary focus seems to deal with flowers. He slices the face into two parts and puts beautiful flowers in the middle as shown above. He also does geometrical edits in his older posts. Some of his old posts might slightly have mature content but that definitely doesn’t stop me, or even any of his followers, like his masterpieces less.
Ilham has done three cover arts for an Indonesian DJ, Jevin Julian‘s songs called LIT, Tell Me and Capone and his work does not disappoint. Different from the previous three artists, Ilham mostly does various solid coloured backgrounds with gentle colours, sometimes neon. Those two factors, the creative surrealism turn, and the colours he chooses for backgrounds definitely make Ilham Rambe stand out from the crowd. He’s truly one of a kind.
These four artists give their audience something magical and out-of-the-ordinary vibes for their feeds, and they are definitely worth following.
Featured image via Canva
