Midsummer Dream's 1986

Charles Bell's 'Midsummer Dream’s' is a painting, but it feels like something else entirely, an uncanny hallucination. It's all about hyper-realism, with these smooth, almost airbrushed surfaces, giving it this dreamlike quality. Look at the doll's face, so smooth, so porcelain, and then bam! The rough, broken edge of her arm. That little hiccup of texture, the tiny disruption in the illusion, it's like a trapdoor opening into another dimension. The whole scene is theatrical and slightly unsettling. The crisp lines and meticulous rendering remind me of Magritte, but with a pop sensibility. It invites you to step into a surreal space where clarity and mystery coexist. Art is a playground, where we mix and match, borrow and steal, and create something that hopefully feels fresh and alive.