French artist Tof Vanmarque crafts surreal worlds in his acrylic paintings. These fictional characters exist in a world devoid of physics, muted clothing, and in many cases, body parts. The artist’s work tends to exist against scenic, yet rundown backdrops, possibly victim to the insane characters that inhabit them.
An Artsper profile offers some insight into his style, saying that the artist manages to “to distort the subject by maintaining the particularities in order to retain the strong objective of elements that make up the narration of the painting.” They continue: “His characters are similar to puppets and clowns. The first one portray economic and political actors of our world without actually seeing the face whereas the clowns symbolize human behavior, often fake and misleading. Behind this imaginary universe, Tof Vanmarque hides a true protester message.”
The artist lives and works in Brittany. Vanmarque was recently part of a show at Melting Art Gallery in France. The gallery notes that some have compared the artist’s work to painter Jérôme Bosch, also known for his intense, vibrant scenes with several characters and components to a single work.
In a mid-career retrospective exhibition at the