Mel Ramos Paintings

"Bright Horizons (The Puppeteers)" is a painting by Maestro Vlado Vesselinov. About the painting: Style and Technic: POP ART, Contemporary, Acryli...

"Coca Cola ... Si?! II" is a painting by Maestro Vlado Vesselinov. About the painting: Style and Technic: POP ART, Contemporary, Gouache, oil on c...

This painting is Bruno Surdo’s contemporary reimagining of Saint Sebastian, one of the most enduring subjects in Western art. From Mantegna and Botticelli to Guido Reni and Caravaggio, Sebastian has long been depicted as the bound, arrow-pierced martyr whose physical suffering becomes an image of spiritual transcendence. Surdo clearly situates himself within this lineage: the contrapposto pose, uplifted gaze, and carefully modeled anatomy reflect his atelier training and deep engagement with Renaissance ideals of the heroic nude. The flesh is luminous and sculptural, recalling Michelangelo’s influence on the canon of the male body as both aesthetic and symbolic form. Yet Surdo decisively destabilizes the tradition. The arrows piercing the body are not lethal shafts but rubber suction-cup darts—objects associated with toys and staged play. This substitution transforms martyrdom into performance. The gravity of sacred suffering is undercut by irony, even absurdity. The saint is no longer impaled by instruments of death but by harmless projectiles, suggesting that contemporary suffering may be theatricalized, trivialized, or culturally mediated. At the same time, the figure’s expression remains sincere and emotionally vulnerable; the psychological intensity is real, even if the wounds are not. This tension between authentic emotion and artificial harm introduces a modern critique of spectacle—how pain can be aestheticized, simulated, or consumed. The graffiti-covered urban wall further collapses sacred history into contemporary space. Instead of a devotional landscape or heavenly backdrop, Surdo situates his Sebastian against a chaotic, tagged surface, merging classical beauty with raw urban immediacy. Saint Sebastian has long functioned not only as a symbol of faith but also as an emblem of sensualized male beauty and coded identity in art history. Surdo acknowledges that layered tradition while reframing it through irony and cultural commentary. By replacing deadly arrows with toy darts, he transforms martyrdom into a meditation on vulnerability in an age where suffering may be symbolic rather than fatal—performed, projected, or socially inflicted rather than divinely ordained. As in much of his work, Surdo grounds contemporary psychological tension in the authority of Renaissance form, using the language of history painting to question what sanctity, sacrifice, and spectacle mean today. Bruno Surdo Paradox of St. Sebastian oil on canvas 60h x 36w in 152.40h x 91.44w cm Bruno A. Surdo b. Chicago, 1963 EXHIBITIONS 2018 Liberation, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Blood Sport, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Art on Paper 2018, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Pier 36, New York, NY SOFA Chicago 2018, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL 2017 POP!ARAZZI, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Coming Attractions, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL 2015 SOFA Chicago 2015, Ann Nathan Gallery, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Allegories, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2014 Bruno Surdo: Respond, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Modern Metaphors, Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, IL 2013 Bruno Surdo: Revelations, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Vice + Virtue, Northern Illinois University Museum of Art 2012 Contemporary Realism Biennial, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN 2011 Bruno Surdo, University of St. Francis School of Creative Arts, Fort Wayne, IN Uncensored, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2010 Art Chicago 2010, Ann Nathan Gallery, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 2009 Art Chicago 2009, Ann Nathan Gallery, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 2007 Bruno Surdo, Art Institute of Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN 2006 Context/Content: Making Meaning with the Figure, University of Arkansas, Conway, AR Creative Imaginings, Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL Bruno Surdo: Cycles, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2005 Art Chicago 2005, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2004 Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Richard M. Daley Center, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2004, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Group Show, Arcadia Gallery, New York, NY Drawings VII, Koplin Del Rio Gallery, West Hollywood, CA Armory Show, New York Armory, New York, NY 2003 Paintings & Drawings, College of Lake County, Grayslake, IL The Art Show, New York, NY Bruno Surdo: New Work, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2003, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2003-10 International Show of Contemporary Artists, Chicago Art Open, Chicago, IL 2002 Bruno Surdo: Perception of Appearance, Frye Museum, Seattle, WA Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Richard M. Daley Center, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Transcendence, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2002, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2001 Magic Vision, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR 1998 Evanston and Vicinity Artists, Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL 1996 Bruno Surdo: A Personal View, University of Wisconsin, Kenosha, WI 1995 Bruno Surdo: Recent Works, College of Lake County, IL AIDS in Our Society, Loyola University, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Life, Struggle, and Hope, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL 2001 Magic Vision, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR Bruno Surdo: Dualities of Life, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 1999 Group Show, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 1998 Group Exhibition, Fine Arts Building Gallery, Chicago, IL 1995 Spiritual Inquiries, Struve Gallery, Chicago, IL 1994 Recent Works, The 14th Annual Juried Exhibition for Lake County Artists, Grayslake, IL Go Figure, Figurative Works on Paper, Chicago Printmakers Collaborative, Chicago, IL SELECTED COLLECTIONS The Re-Birth of Venus, Temporary Loan, Fort Wayne Museum of Art Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR College of Lake County, Greyslake, IL Flashpoint Academy, Chicago IL John Robert Wiltgen Design Shoemaker Ruud Collection Julie & Thomas Danilek Michael Vozzella and Mike Silver Benjamin Fernandez Tom Braake Betsy Colburn Michael Diemand & Lor LaRose Michael Staab & Kathy Brock Bruce Leep Frank Tzurect Mary Foley Rosalyn Carlson Mimmy Turney Janet Long Halstead Billy Hunt Carol Galli Myles Kerrigan Honorable & Mrs. Edwin Berman Theodore Gage Northrop Art Museum Past Present & Future Company Dr. James & Peggy Kemmler Salvatore Monastero Nix & Virginia Lauridsen Joel Miller David & Marlene Zerkel Ann & Andy Abel Claudia Rush Marc Miller Leonard Goldberg Lawrence Pucci Howard Tullman Collection Susan & Manny Kramer James Rinnert Richar Interiors Michael & Nancy Colt Khalid Altijir Dr. Joe Grodman Beryl & Jack Gore Larry Wolf & Eric Naegle Chuck Wolandi Jack Schwab & David Sandelin Thomas Kaczmarek Marti Dinerstein Craig & Michael Golden...

Large Modernist Seated Nude, 1941 Oil Painting, School of Paris Figurative Work by Picasso’s Nephew Artist: Javier Vilató Ruiz Title: Seated Nude Date: 1941 Medium: Oil on canvas ...

Rene Caty French Impressionist Exhibited at the Medici Society, London Oil on canvas Signed and dated Rene Caty 1962 bottom right. 23.5 x 27.75" (60 x 70cm) 32 x 36.25" (82 x 92cm) Perhaps Rene Caty's finest work of art with loose brush strokes and wonderful highlights depicting a beautiful red headed girl...

'Sugar Smacks and The Smackin' Brothers' by Leslie Lew is a sculpted oil on canvas painting with saturated colors of yellow, blue, red, purple, orange, white and black. Born in Ne...

Born in 1982 in Manzanillo, Cuba, artist Darwin Estacio Martinez honed his artistic skills at the Professional Academy of Fine Arts "El Alba" i...

Part of Daniela Astone's series of figures in different ethereal and surrealistic spaces. "The Kiss" brings to mind Gustav Klimt's famous 1908 painting of the same name but instead of an abstracted gold background, Astone creates a mysterious creature enveloping and suspending the figure in mid-air. The dark monster looks ominous until you notice the nude figure leaning into her partner, her hands lightly caressing or leaning on the the amorphous creature. Her body is relaxed and her eyes closed. As a classical artist who paints the nude figure everyday, Astone is masterful at depicting women at ease in their natural bodies rather than women self-conscious of their nudity—posing but fearful of exploitation at the same time—a theme in art history that continues today. Some of the sweeping strokes of black are inspired by Japanese paintings techniques, and on the lighter areas there are rain drop falling from a blue-grey cloud in the background. 52.8 x 44.9 inches framed Artist Bio Daniela Astone was born in Pisa, Italy, in 1980 and raised in Porto Santo Stefano...

CHRIS WATTS "Juliet" Acrylic on Canvas 60 x 60 inches _____________________________________ Chris Watts is an award-winning graphic designer, singer-songw...

Title: Garden of Earthly Delights Artist: TheDirtyFabulous Media: Oil on metal with polyurethane varnish Size: 60 x 40 inches / 153 x 102cm Year created: 2012-2014 Societies have long employed images that visualize their belief systems or attempt to encapsulate a narrative of our human destiny. This work follows in that tradition. The uppermost vignette is a silhouette from the nursery rhyme “Jack be nimble”, a children’s rhyme that refers to a 19th century game and a form of fortune telling. In Roman mythology Parcae (plural) were the personifications of fate. They are used in this painting as bookend figures on either side of a cosmic machine that answers questions of fate. Three vintage light bulbs labeled “yes”, “maybe” and “no” sit atop the clock – like machine and illuminate answers to humanity’s eternal questions. At the top of the composition are several re- configured tarot / divination cards belonging to an anonymous person circa 1930’s. The cards here are labeled; satisfaction dark woman, jealousy, dark man and betrayal. The grouping of these four cards refers to both positive and negative potentials concerning fate and offer clues to the viewer on a number of possible scenarios it could describe. The lower portion of the picture contains two silhouetted vignettes on either side of a central image of stars and planets against a dark void. The left image is of two children in a small wagon being pulled by a beetle. This is a reference to Egyptian mythology and the sun god Khepri. who personifies birth / rebirth. Khepri is portrayed as a beetle that pushes the sun across the sky. Here the young innocents...

This superb British oil painting is by well respected and much sought after female artist Constance Anne Parker. It was painted circa 1955 and is of an unclothed black woman. The fac...

Modern nude study of woman seated in chair by American painter, Patricia Gren Hayes (b. 1932). Red haired women with side view of same woman with asymmetrical composition circa 1970. Unsigned. Provenance: Purchased as part of larger collection of artist's work Unframed. Canvas size: 29"H x 29"W Patricia Gren Hayes (American, b. 1932) is a Bay Area Figurative & Feminist Art Movement artist who studied at Winnipeg Public Art School in 1950. She received early recognition in Museum and Gallery competitions and exhibitions and was awarded a Special Education in Art recognition by the Winnipeg Museum of Fine Art, and was awarded a scholarship to the Banff College of Fine Art. Further studies were at The University of Manitoba. She was a Member of Winnipeg Free Press Sketch Club and was a Cartoonist and paste-up for a French-English bi-weekly, in Eastern Canada; She studied outdoor impressionism in New York in 1960; in 1962, attended The California College of Arts and Crafts, and in 1976 B.A., U.C. Berkeley where she studied under Elmer Bischoff, David Simpson, Joan Brown, Felix Ruvolo, Yolanda Lopez and Vincent Perez. She started a freelance commercial art business in 1963; copyrighted a National Cartoon, 1976, and served as Exhibition Director for San Francisco Woman Artists Gallery and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1976-1978. She was a workshop instructor at the San Francisco Woman Artists Gallery, 1977-1985; and was Manager/Owner Stanton Art Gallery, Alameda, CA, 1976-1982. Solo Exhibitions: Berkeley Marina, 1974; Oakland Center for The Visual Arts, "Images of Women", 1979 Group Exhibitions: Oakland's Dept of Education, 1963, Studio One; Alameda County Fair, 1975, 1976, 1978; San Francisco Art Festival, 1969, 1970, 1976, 1977, 1978; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1976, 1977, 1978; San Francisco Women Artists Gallery Exhibition, award winner - 1970, 1977, 1978; Hayward Bay Fair Art Festival, award winner - 1971; Capricorn Assunder Gallery, 1973; Oakland Art Festival, 1973, 1974; Alameda Art Association, 1978; El Cerrito...