Isak Applin selects...

Carl Baratta, The Faithful Protector (After Nick Englebert), 2008, egg tempera on board


Jeremy Somer, Bacchanale Scene III, animation

I cannot think of any other artists whose work is so intensely curious, fantastic and free of reservation. While fantasy is often employed by artists to represent an exotic, otherworldly universe, Carl Baratta and Jeremy Somer's work manages to retain a tenuous, vital, even mythic link with our own experiences and world. Logically, such a cacophony of monstrosities, Venutian foliage, electric reptiles and Pleistocene insects should be content to reside in a habitat far from the concerns of 21st century. However, in the hands of Somer and Baratta the creatures and environments are somehow analogies, allegories or even explanations for what resides beneath mundane existence. - Isak Applin