Marcel Dzama

100,000 Years of Revenge, 2004, http://www.richardhellergallery.com

There is the peculiar feeling in a Marcel Dzama painting that you’ve woken up into a dream. The places are vaguely familiar and people unthreatening as they go about their business unaware of you. But as you rub your eyes and become more aware of where you are, there is a sense that there are problems here. Something is not right.

Last Winter Here, 2004, http://www.richardhellergallery.com

Oh yes, things are very wrong indeed.

Untitled, 2003, http://www.richardhellergallery.com

Dzama paints in a straightforward figural style, and his people and animal hybrids are reminiscent of mid-century illustrations or some hand-me-down children's book with yellowed pages. He uses a root beer base for his melancholic browns and khakis, and his figures bundle up in furs and overcoats appropriate for Dzama’s Winnipeg home. They smile, chat and link arms as they point and laugh at aliens, wrestle bears, and threaten to kill each other. And there are tree people.

Fearful Lineup, 2004, http://www.richardhellergallery.com

Some of it can be quite dark, but it is often darkly comic. His sketchbooks, recently published by McSweeney’s, reveal a sense of humor behind the surrealism. Hilariously appropriated magazine clippings (the mayor’s head atop a dinosaur with new caption: “Mayor Glen Murrayasaurus, I Love You!”), comic strips (Super Happy Fun Comic: “I wish my mother would stop lighting my bed on fire”), notes, Polaroids and sketches for costume pieces give some insight to the process. These aren't merely clever illustrations, but the work of a true artist with a brilliant (and enviable) imagination.

Untitled, 2007, http://www.artnet.com/

His work is quite fashionable these days – celebrities are driving his prices up and his paintings can be found on album covers by Beck and They Might Be Giants – but his work still connects at a deep, perhaps subconscious level. It’s not necessary to share his or his character’s experience (thankfully) because the otherworldly, dreamlike quality is universally beguiling. He is a sort-of modern day De Chirico in the sense that his work is simple, but implies a vaguely disturbing narrative beyond the image. There is also something classic and shopworn about his work that reminds me of the expressionistic, vintage-inspired films of Guy Maddin (also from Winnipeg).

Untitled, 2002, http://www.tate.org.uk

Dzama formed a group called The Royal Art Lodge with some like-minded artist friends in 1996 as a means to collaborate and share drawings and ideas. Each finished work they produce is sorted into piles of "good", "bad" and "OK", and stamped with a date. They apparently still meet once a week.