Art Blogging: Jeremiah Ketner

Jeremiah Ketner is a Chicago-based artist who depicts colorful, carefree, images of flowers and fairies. He met and married a Japanese woman who took him to Japan. Ever since, he has been mesmerized by modern Japanese aesthetics, and it shows in his work. Ketner is drawn to a simplicity that he finds in nature, particularly flowers. He studied at the Columbus College of Art and Design and the Southern Illinois University. Take Me To Your Special Place, acrylic on wood, 2007.
Mushroom Snacks For Our Serpent, acrylic on wood, 2008.
Another Tomorrow, acrylic on wood, 2008.

You can read an interview with Ketner here. The best part:

What is the strangest comment anyone has ever made about your artwork?

One guy thought I was an Asian female. Then he met me, and seemed highly disappointed.

Art Blogging: Caia Koopman

Caia Koopman is an American Pop Surrealist artist. For readers unfamiliar with that term, Pop Surrealism is a movement closely affiliated with lowbrow. But as Ms. Koopman identifies herself as a Pop Surrealist, I'll do her the courtesy of using that name.

Koopman was raised in Southern California, where she studied art at the University of Santa Cruz and became associated with the skateboarder culture. In an interview with Juxtapoz, she said of her work:

My girls are tethered to the earth by all its cycles, they are surrounded by and part of life, death and beauty....My biggest overall influence is the idea of humans being part of nature rather than separate from it.

You can get a good sense of this organic ideal in her work from these examples. Up first: Chemical Girl, acrylic on canvas, 2009.



Entomology 5 (Ismene), acrylic on wood, 2008.

Dancis, acrylic on canvas.