The Vancouver Art Gallery is currently home to a five month exhibit called The Colour of My Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art. The exhibit forced me to buy a membership to the gallery (not a bad idea anyway), as I wanted to go several times, and I'm just getting back today from my six or seventh visit. It's great to be able to spend time with art like this- some days I only drop in for an hour or so, and stay in only one room, sometimes with only a few pieces. Many artists have stood out for me, and many things have struck me about the exhibit and the overall oeuvre of the Surrealists. I intend to write a longer piece on the Surrealists for Beams soon, and as several other of the Vancouver based Beams writers have also gone to the exhibit, we plan on putting together a Six Perspectives On piece on the subject as well (the 'Six Perspectives On' being an original Beams literary form). Today I wanted to share a few paintings by the Surrealist artist Kurt Seligmann, someone I'd never heard of before the exhibit, but whose work has struck a chord for me, attracting me for whatever reason. Here's a small sampling of his paintings below. What arises for you when viewing the paintings? What's going on in these images?

      Prometheus (1946)

      Alaska (1944)

      Initiation (1946)

      Melusine and the Great Transparents