Have you ever been really into something and then found out that there are other things like this something and that there’s a name for this stuff and lots of other people like this stuff too? If that sentence didn’t make any sense to you don’t worry about it, the rest of this blog post doesn’t require that you’re orbiting the same celestial body as me to understand it.

I recently discovered that the type of art (apart from mixed media) that makes my heart go thump has a name and its name is “pop surrealism“. Apparently it’s a bit of a misnomer, and hotly contested by some of those upon whom the label is foisted, but it’s a revelation nonetheless.

I met two art students whilst on our journeys in Tunisia who asked me what “art movement” I consider my paintings to belong to. I told them I don’t get that academic about it and said I just paint cute stuff that’s kind of creepy, which left them looking at me blankly. Little did I know this cute and creepy stuff is apparently a valid (to some) art movement.

This discovery happily coincided with a visit to Rome, which happens to be the home of the Dorothy Circus Gallery that sells prints of one of my favourite artists of this style – Nicoletta Ceccoli. It had never occurred to me that art with a focus on strange and innocent yet disturbing subjects could be found in a gallery. T-shirts from Dangerfield maybe, but certainly not galleries as I knew them. This discovery has opened up a whole new wonderfully macabre and seedy world.