Castle

Fan - 4 Expert - 12

$1,300.00

This is one of the very few paintings based on a dream. Even though my dreams can be really crazy, I seldom use them for my paintings. This is an exception. The dream was actually a very short one. It was just the painting right in front of my eyes for a few seconds and nothing else. When I woke up I knew I had to paint it so I made a sketch and then I painted it. It almost feels as if I had not created it. It just popped in my head during my sleep. My brain spit it out for me. So there is no story to it. I could come up with some crazy description but I prefer to leave it as it is. It is up to you, the viewer, to find your own interpretation if you feel connected to it. That would make this surreal painting complete and I would feel very happy.
It was created using oil paint on canvas.
It measures 24x30 inches, with a depth of 0.75 in.
The sides were painted so it may hang without a frame though it would also look good with a frame (frame not included)

Responses (1)

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John Crowther Critic

January 07, 2022

Marlene Llanes’ "Castle" is a wonderfully figurative yet markedly surreal painting that harkens back to many surrealist masters. The sole cloud in the otherwise clear blue-sky, calls to mind René Magritte’s beguiling surrealist canopies. The influence, however, of preeminent and certainly the most famous surrealist Salvador Dali and the enchanting (and for my money, without doubt, the greatest surrealist) Leonora Carrington, is far more pronounced. All three of these artists are universally acclaimed and particularly the two men (wonder why) fetch near-criminal prices at auctions. Dali and Carrington are famous for their dreamscapes: fantastical landscapes that can only emerge from the depths of the unconscious or the peculiar world of dreams. "Castle", however, not only inherits these dreamlike scenes but takes them in a different direction. There is as much magical realism in the composition as surrealism. Like the magical realists, Llanes does not dive so deep into fantasy that the picture is completely foreign to our world. Instead, she establishes a markedly surreal aesthetic but visually grounds it in the material world. For me, this approach is more surreal, because it makes us question the reality of the scene and thus our perception.