Michael Kvium’s strange, theatrical figures can rarely be confined to a single canvas or container. Taking a cynical eye toward political and social issues, the artist uses the grotesque and the unexpected to put a lens on the Western world. His newer works move between startling sculpture and multi-panel pieces.
“With sharp irony and a coarse sense of humour, Kvium uncovers the absurdities of our society,” a statement from the show “Cirkus Europa” says. “The exhibition mainly focuses on issues such as tourism, entertainment, news, the refugee crisis, war and climate. He depicts the political stage and our everyday lives as one big circus act. His paintings are inhabited by tragicomic circus performers who entertain the viewer with their ignorant and morbid tricks. This enables Kvium to draw us into the circus ring, into the midst of lunacy and madness.”
See more of his recent work below.
Traditionally, the self-portrait gives the viewer an outward representation of the inner self. Painter 
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In the upcoming show "Dramaholics," Mexican painter José Rodolfo Loaiza Ontiveros takes the taboos of reality and injects them into the idealized world of Disney. The show, running Dec. 6-29 at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles, offers new acrylic and oil works from the artist. Ontiveros was last featured on cctvta.com