10 Artists you need to Know 👀 #3
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1 | Bo Bartlett
Bo Bartlett (b. 1955) is an American realist painter whose monumental canvases blend everyday life with dreamlike surrealism.
A protégé of Andrew Wyeth, he paints family and friends in his Georgia childhood home and Maine island retreat. Critics dismissed his work as “idiotic” in the 1990s, but he gained passionate collectors and in 2018 Columbus State University opened the Bo Bartlett Center in his hometown. His paintings combine Hopper’s loneliness with Lynch’s uncanny strangeness.
2 | Mark Harrison
Mark Harrison (b. 1963) is a British painter who illustrated over 480 fantasy and sci-fi book covers before quitting commercial work in 2003 to paint fine art landscapes.
His atmospheric cityscapes and coastal scenes use single light sources: moonlit nights and contre-jour daylight, with influences from Southeast Asian art. Represented by Abend Gallery and exhibited at juried shows including the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, he bridges genre illustration and contemporary landscape painting.
3 | Valery Slauk
Valery Slauk (b. 1947) is a Belarusian graphic artist known as the “Belarusian Dürer” for his intricate black and white etchings depicting Slavic mythology.
Working with jeweler’s precision, he transforms folklore creatures into densely detailed compositions where hundreds of fantastic characters coexist.
His illustrations for the Encyclopedia of Belarusian Folklore became defining images of Slavic myth for contemporary audiences. An Honored Artist of Belarus, his work is held in museums across Austria, Italy, and Germany.
4 | Volker Hermes
