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Carl & Lida Sloan

 

Magic Realism in Art

The painter Remedios Varo (1908-1963) is the preeminent artist of Magic Realism. Her work is better known in Latin America than in the English speaking world. Varo was a painter as were many Magic Realists. We can produce similar effects by layering photographs over each other generally tweaking them in Photoshop. We put dissimilar objects together in new relationships. Our goal is to get the viewer to see "reality" in new ways. Often we try things we don't think will work. Sometimes they do and the results are stunning. That to us is the real magic.

Magic Realism seems to contain more realistic elements than Surrealism with which it appears to overlap. Because of this realism, the fantasy or magical parts can creep up on you:

  1. Three men are shown with beards longer than their feet. Looking down the viewer sees their beards have curled into wheels and become unicycles which the men are riding.
  2. A woman with a butterfly net holds the quarter moon in a cage.
  3. A woman is using a meat grinder. Instead of meat she is grinding stars.
  4. On closer inspection the sails of a ship become part of a woman's face.
  5. A cliff face contains the worried face of a trapped man.
  6. A woman's face is part of a clock designed to remind you of the Statue of Liberty.

Perhaps Magic Realism taps into another reality of soul and energy. It asks: which is more real--the world of our five senses or the world of energy, feeling and soul? However one wishes to describe Magic Realism, clearly what we hope to do is make the commonplace strange and answer in part the question: What is Magic Realism?

Carl and Lida Sloan

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