Ben Heine 1983 | Digital Surrealist painter

Ben Heine is an illustrator, portraitist, caricaturist and photographer. Born in Abidjan, Ivory Coast and currently resides in Brussels. He has studied graphic arts, sculpture and holds a degree in journalism. His most recent project caught my eye, which he describes as digital circlism. Using varying sizes of different shaded circles, Heine meticulously arranges them to form incredible digital portraits. In my painting, I've been deeply influenced by German Expressionism, Belgian Surrealism, American Pop Art and Social Realism. So far, I've exhibited my creations in galleries and art events in Belgium, Great Britain, Turkey, Romania, France, Canada, USA, Germany, Brazil, South Korea, Spain and Palestine. I have always had a very generous conception of art, I don’t like the way art is nowadays used for commercial purposes only and proposed to the elite, I think everybody should have the chance to see and enjoy culture. My artistic work is mainly the result of what influences me and inspires me the most in my close environment.

Yosuke Ueno | Pop Surrealist japanese painter

Yosuke on his work: The most important thing when I paint is to be very careful.
It is a consciousness in which I can’t anticipate what kind of work will result.
I hope to challenge in paint what I couldn’t handle with my mind.
An adventurer makes his way without fully knowing what lies ahead. A chemist never succeeds without experimentation.
When I am working, I get to the point where I can’t even imagine the outcome, and then suddenly see a brand-new, beautiful path.

Italia Ruotolo | Italian Pop Art painter

Italia Ruotolo born in Naples, Italy. After Classic Literature studies graduated at the Fine Arts Academy of Naples.

For many years she worked as goldsmith and jewel designer. Ruotolo's work is a broad range of pop art and art nouveau.

Her source of inspiration is the world that surrounds her. In her work, there isn’t much distinction between high and low cultural level, because she’s aware that the contemporary man lives in a myriad of sensorial stimulation and is himself the product of continuing interlocution between the real and the mere appearance or mere fiction.

We find echoes of these contradictions in her work in constant search of a balance between past and future, good and evil,darkness and light.

David Hockney 1937 | English Pop Art painter

David Hockney is an english painter, printmaker, stage designer and photographer. As an important contributor to the Pop Art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential british artists of the twentieth century. On July 9th of the year 1937, Hockney was born with synesthesia, a condition where he sees synesthetic colors to musical stimuli, in Bradford. While attending the Royal College of Art in London, he was featured in the exhibition, Young Contemporaries, that announced the beginning of British Pop Art. David soon became more associated in the movement, and in 1963 Hockney visited New York, making contact with Andy Warhol. A later visit to California inspired Hockney to make a series of paintings of swimming pools in Los Angeles, using the comparatively new Acrylic medium and rendered in a highly realistic style using vibrant colours. In 1967, his painting, Peter Getting Out Of Nick’s Pool, won the John Moores Painting Prize at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. David Hockney is known for his work with photocollage; using varying numbers of small Polaroid snaps or photolab-prints of a single subject, Hockney arranged a patchwork to make a composite image. Because these photographs are taken from different perspectives and at slightly different times, the result is work that has an affinity with Cubism, which was one of Hockney’s major aims, discussing the way human vision works. He began this style of art by taking Polaroid photographs of one subject and arranging them into a grid layout. The subject would actually move while being photographed so that the piece would show the movements of the subject seen from the photographer’s perspective. In later works, Hockney changed his technique and moved the camera around the subject instead. He also made prints, portraits of friends, and stage designs for the Royal Court Theatre and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Even though his painting and photographic works does not show synesthesia, he still uses it as a base principle in the stage construction for ballets and operas. Using it as an advantage, David Hockney bases the background colors and lighting upon his own seen colors while listening to the music of the theater piece he is working on.