Art is perhaps, the most powerful medium to understand emotions and a feel a certain way. Some works elate you with joy, while others make you question sorrow. Some works take your back to your childhood, and some lock you in your own thoughts. And then there are artworks which make you forget about the world and transport you to a dreamland!

The first artist I associate the term ‘Dreamland’ with, is Salvador Dali, best known for his work ‘The Persistence of Memory’. This Spanish artist managed to create parallel worlds through his surrealist art. The amalgamation of the bizarre objects with his colour pallet created a unique kind of art which nobody had seen before! His work ‘The Temptation of St. Anthony’ is his replication of Michelangelo’s work from the classic period and is one of my first paintings which pop in mind when I think of a Dreamland.

Henri Rousseau is another artist whose artworks have a mystic and dreamy essence. Rousseau was a French post-impressionist artist from the early 20^th Century. His hyper-detailed works are famous for showcasing enchanted forests and portraits.

This article sheds light on contemporary artists and their dreamy artworks. As I look at the following works, I find myself being transported into a world where everything seems to slow down, and I feel myself getting lost in the magic of colors. This is what I would describe my dreamland to be like!

1.     Nikolina Petolas

Nikola’s series Gentle Giants is a treat to the eyes! Her works seem to come out of a fairy-tale and the enormous creatures capture your complete attention. According to Petolas, her works ‘take us on a journey to distant, but familiar places’. All the animals bring forward peace and stillness admits their magical surroundings.

About Nikolina

Nikolina is a visual artist from Zagreb, Croatia. She works in several techniques, such as photo collage, digital art, oils and acrylics. With her works she searches to underline the psychological and social aspects of our identity and effects that endless soul searching has on our lives. 

In her metaphorical presentations, from dreamlike landscapes and fantasy scenery to strange and dark characters, creatures and environments, she uses the observation of inner conflicts and questions that arise from them, as a dreamy and vivid example to show complex human emotions and drives as well as her subjective personal experience of the world. 

Find her here: https://www.nikolinapetolas.com

2.     Rosso Emerald Crimson

Rosso’s art has a distinct way of engaging with the viewer. Her works are bold but uses a very subtle colour pallet. It almost feels like the subjects of her paintings are directly conversing with you and taking you to a dreamland far away. The expressions of the women leave you inquisitive, in the need of knowing more.

About Rosso Emerald Crimson

In her portraiture, London-based artist Rosso Emerald Crimson renders female subjects who emerge through a haze of pastels and muted tones. She infuses the dreamy oil paintings with responses to current affairs and questions about the future, which often serve as a catalyst for her projects. Issues of racial justice, gender inequality and environmental crisis have all played a major role in her recent work. 
The artist often depicts the women and girls staring forward with unsmiling expressions. “I am enchanted by the diversity of human beings which is what truly makes us beautiful,” she says. 

Find her here! http://www.rossoart.net

3. Nadia Attura

Nadia’s landscapes feel like those moments frozen in space & time, which one would never want to leave! The vignette effect into the works makes one feel nostalgic and dreamy.

About Nadia

Featured in The New York Times, VOGUE, The Guardian, Ideal Home, Aesthetica and ENKI magazine.  Nadia creates photographed details which she makes on location these are then layered to form a tableaux of collected scenes within a scene, together they convey a sense of place and time. Applying washes, paints, ink, gold leaf and chalk to the constructed images.

Her original photography disappears from documentary single imagery toward a more painterly poetic interpreted view of the world.  Aesthetica Magazine writes ‘Nadia Attura works with layering techniques to create complex compositions. Often grappling with ideas of idealism and paradise, the bright images are multifaceted tableaux, combining unexpected objects, settings and colours to construct uncanny depictions of desirable destinations.”

Find her here!: https://www.nadiaatturaart.com/

4. Katarina Vicenova

Katrina’s artwork showcases a serene and peaceful moment in time. It captures a young woman and beautiful while swan in a dense forest. The play of light and shadow into the sombre colours makes one feel that they are a part of the painting!

About Katarina Vicenova

Katarina Vicenova is a Slovakian-born figurative portrait artist specializing in oil paint techniques and charcoal drawing. She spends a majority of her time living and working between Miami, Florida and New York City. Her choice of artistic expression is Realism.  It is Katarina’s strong belief that Realism is the ideal method for communicating our perspective of the beauty, thoughts, feelings and ideas that we have about ourselves, people and the world around us. 

Katarina has often said that “our dreams and desires are best expressed through Realism as they are stored and understood as realistic images in our minds” and that “portraits reveal the inner essence and energy of all people and things that I am most fortunate to witness and paint”.

In her artwork Katarina often uses the beauty of natural settings to create images to tell each subject’s story. Katarina has emphasized that “in my paintings, the present moment of ever-changing life is captured and this present moment is the only thing we ever really have”.

Find her here: https://www.vicenovastudios.com

5. Hans Rombouts

Hans’ surrealist paintings are a classic combination of sophistication and boldness. The use of light to create the perfect composition leaves the audience mesmerised. The monochromatic colour pallete gives the feel of an a dreamland underwater.

About Hans Rombouts

Hans Rombouts was born in 1937 in The Hague in the Netherlands. He has completed his study at the Royal Academy of The Hague. His teachers included Co Westerik and Willem Minderman.  He sold his artwork at exhibitions in Amersfoort, Hilversum, Den Haag and Blaricum. Rombouts paints in various styles: magical realism, surrealism, still life, pop art, abstract and realism. His images very often originate from pictures from newspapers or magazines and are enriched with his own fantasies. His working method is starting with a monochrome acrylic underpainting. Then the artwork is painted and completed with oil paint. He pays a lot of attention to the total composition and lighting. 

Find him here: http://www.hansrombouts.nl/schilderijen.php

Written by: Aradhita Maheshwari 

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