As a writer and an artist, I am basically a Surrealist. But do you know what I mean by that?
Salvador Dali was a Surrealist. As was Paul Klee, Greg Hildebrandt and his brother Tim, Larry Elmore, Boris Vallejo, every other fantasy artist, and every science fiction artist. It means being an artist who can paint or draw something extremely unreal in a way that makes it seem entirely real.
I have been that since childhood. Childhood trauma, a vivid imagination, and a need to live mostly in my own head has forced me to be that.
Surrealism is taking things that do not go together in real life and forcing them together in Realistic Art.
If you do a realistic painting of a tiger withlagle wings, you create a surrealistic image. Al Capp’s Lil Abner newspaper cartoon strip was surrealist every day. Almost all cartoon strips were or are. Calvin and Hobbs perchance? The talking cartoon bee on the cereal box in every Honey Combs or Honey-nut Cheerios commercials? In the modern world we are increasingly surrounded by Surrealism. AI-created art is nothing but surrealistic images slammed together by a randomizimg AI mind responding to the wicked thoughts of users. A girl in a bikini with a canine chihuahua head? Or more likely, a girl without a bikini and a chihuahua’s head.
The movie, The Birds, by Alfred Hitchcock is Surrealism. Having an orange-faced criminal for a president like the current President Pumpkinhead is definitely Surrealism. As the world becomes increasingly nonsensical, it becomes more surrealistic. And hence, the need for Surrealists like me.
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is Surrealism.
Catch a Falling Star 