I was introduced to Surrealism at the age of fifteen, when I read the book “The Poet Assassinated” by Guillaume Apollinaire. The cover was a painting by Henri Rousseau, and I don’t know what fascinated me more, whether it was the eery, theatrical tone of the book with its absurd twists and grotesque dialogues, or the cover representing the poet and his muse, stiff and anatomically incorrect, standing behind a unnaturally straight line of flowers. I knew I wanted to be an artist and it was Surrealism that I wanted to pursue in my art. Surrealism also comes with a welcome advantage to a self-taught artist like myself: the freedom of not being required to replicate reality, but instead draw exclusively from the unlimited territory of the imagination. I work in oil, acrylic, watercolor, and mixed media.
