Not necessarily "half-abandoned" nor decrepit, just taken out of the usual urban context and plopped into arcadian greenery.
It's not even that surreal. Had a few lovely train rides (back in my old ticket-counterfeiting days) across Flandres, and lo and behold: at every turn of the railway there's a full-grown 2-3 storey distinctly urban inner-city 19th century grand townhouse popping out in the middle of the woods, even with a little stretch of pavement (sidewalk), street-lamp and all that. Or a small cluster of them. (Just like in Arnau's paintings.) It did feel surreal indeed at first sight, but it's just commonplace reality there. I do highly approve of that sort of livelihood.
Or the romanesque / gothic cathedrals and industrial buildings, both induce the same visceral intrigue and attraction - this is an almost too didactic example:
Also he heavily features various means of public transport. Magic-realist public transport (and getting splendidly lost with it) is the second most frequent element in my dreams, after buildings / towns.
Also portent skies.
It's like someone else went all into the trouble of painting painstakingly precise pictures of all the images floating about in my head at any given moment. However mundane the setting (SC) is, this was a milestone encounter and one doesn't get those every too often (last time i recall was in 1996 with Wilhelm Frænger) - so yes, i fully enjoy it.
And how the fuck i haven't heard of him before! I must have fallen completely out of the loop.
I think that's an eloquent and fitting description. If I had to pick two favorite contemporary painters, they would be Arnau Alemany and Jacek Yerka. Speaking of which, I think I'll make a Jacek Yerka one (although I might have a thing or two of his scattered about somewhere in the thread).
Never heard of Jacek Verka but he sounds Czech. (And as we know everybody who is somebody is Czech.)
Can you please stop flooding the place with new material, some of us in this godforsaken timezone are trying to get some sleep.
I. Shall. Not. Google. Jacek. Verka. Until. The. Morrow.
