Jacek Yerka - Amonit

¤ "Amonit" by Jacek Yerka can be found on his own site Jacek Yerka painter of the fantasy worlds. You can find galleries of his work in a few places on his site. I suggest "How do I make my paintings..." and "My Worlds".

¤ I experienced a strange feeling when I looked at this artist's piece. My heart went giddy with excitement as it brought me to my childhood. This work has so many tremendous qualities its hard to know where to begin. The houses that are carved into the rock appear both fragile and robust at the same time. The spiral at the top of the image looks like a shell you would pick up off the beach and a pastry treat good enough to eat.

I do find it extraordinary how the water is able to just stay delicately placed on top of the cliff and refrain from dribbling down the sides. Every time you look at this image you will find something new to marvel over.

~ Mags

¤ I like the impossibility of the sea level being both at the top of the cliff and the bottom at the same time. I look at the buildings which meld into the cliff and wonder whether they are intended to be cliff dwellings or just to point out how stone buildings are so like cliffs. That reminds me somewhat of some of Rob Gonsalves works where cliffs meld into cityscapes and cityscapes into cliffs.

Of course my mind loves to move into paintings to feel what they are like and to explore and I wonder what travelling up that river would lead to. Would there be waterfalls from the top of the cliff in places? Is the sea salt or fresh water? Are there tides?I wonder if there might be a safe harbour in the shell? Do people dwell there still? Was the city carved into rock or grown like the shell the feature looks like?

Jacek Yerka has many fascinating pieces on his site and can be found in other places on the Web if you do a search for his name. His is a name I would like to keep track of.

~ Darrell

Chris Becker - The Hanging City

The second I glanced at Chris Becker's "The Hanging City" I could not take my eyes off the links in the chains. The thought came to me -- What would happen if just one single link snapped? A great analogy as we as humans have forgotten what it means to stick with one another in all kinds of weather. We need to get back to sticking with one another for the long haul. We are all important and often a single link can break a chain.

~Mags

This image makes me think of the flights of fancy I take when I let my imagination run a bit daydreaming. I'll lay back and look at normal objects and they will cease to be normal objects... in this case I am reminded of a hanging light fixture. I might transform such a light fixture into a hanging city in my imagination. Of course there might be a part of my mind wondering just what the city would be hanging from. Still, the city is beautiful and has an airy oriental feeling to it. The composition is interesting with the highlights of the metal and misty shadows in the distance. I wonder how the composition would work on a dark and stormy night...

~ Darrell.