I chose this picture to critique by a feel. I didn't know who the artist was and after 10 minutes of staring at "Otherside" I decided to click "Write critique".

Little did I know....

Clicked on the name and there I am. My third visit to this gallery, but tonight on a different mission, mission of exploration. As the opus of this artist is wide I tried to focus on art that contributed to this piece, and I can tell you it was beautiful to see the transformation from vibrant detail rich surreal animalistic scenes together with realistic details and eye motifs in his earlier work (King of ladybugs, 9Months update) to simplification of an image. The artist being focusing its thoughts in a way, making a lot more subtle use of a symbols to transfer an idea and in a way incorporates it into strong, rich character. During its "cleansing" the artist introduced a specific character.

Artificial by feel, it slowly starts to "invade" this surreal world and starts to benignly influence the space around it as seen in "Everything dies" or "Sky is fallen" or morphing already into something purer like "Another hot day" or this piece.

First impression is the color. Bright blue sky and fluffy white clouds set the initial feel of the piece, introducing you to this weird creature right in the middle of ... learning something new! The strong feel of curiosity which his finger dipped in metaphysical water brings (dipping your toe in life?), enforced through his colorful eyes and deep gaze brings pleasant thoughts and invites you to immerse yourself deeper. But the most striking connection is through his wide open mouth through which he connects to everything else (world?), that connection being symbiotic in nature, this relationship is almost automatic and seems mutual. The finger is the bridge for emotion though. That physical connection we make with the world every day is what connects us to our own impression of reality.

To further pronounce the character, on his back he carries a tree and a house. A tree, with its internal flames sipping through the bark suggest its warmth and can translate as a beautiful reference to Gea, Goddess of earth which is further pronounced in a detail of a tree house which in turn sits on the dead branches, pulling a thought of influence of people on Earth, but which would also make our main character on the picture quite old...

The last detail represent shiny balloons that dance on the breeze celebrating the moment. To me they accentuate the feel of success an accomplishment.

Technically the picture is done right. You can really feel that the artist has a clear idea and a refined technique. Composition is done ok. Tricky dark upper left corner might have had got in a way but the head with a long strong neck give it a nice counterbalance which is felt even more after you think about possible size of the creature.

All in all I love this piece and this artist and I'm looking forward to his next piece.