Stunning Surreal Photoshop Art

Surrealism means "above reality", and is an art form which depicts highly imaginative and unlikely scenes in a realistic manner. The art form began in the 1920s, decades before artists began to create digital art on computers. The rise in popularity of Photoshop paintings has inspired a renaissance of surrealism.

The Surreal World of Photoshop
Famous surrealist painter Salvador Dali (1904-1989) worked mostly in oil paint, creating crazy landscapes that shocked and delighted the art critics of his time. Now, a century after Dali's birth, digital artists can create surreal landscapes with ease, using computer arts programs such as Photoshop.

Above: Surrealist artists often create images in which objects are melting. The painting above shows a nightclub in which everything around a beautiful girl is melting. Perhaps the artist is trying to portray that the girl is so hot, the world around her melts. [source]

Above: The Photoshop artist has used organic shapes in place of the woman's body, using only facial features, hands and a human heart to convince the viewer that the subject in the painting is in fact human. [source]

Above: Desert landscapes, cloudy skies and clocks are popular themes in surrealism. It is likely that this Photoshop artwork uses elements from real photos. [source]

Above: Photoshop allows artists to create surrealist art by combining several photographs. This world in a light bulb is an optical illusion created by altering the perspective and size of the photographic elements. [source]


Anything is Possible
The only limits that surrealist Photoshop artists face are the bounds of their own imagination. Photoshop paintings can be edited at any time, which means that several versions of the same art work can exist. A Photoshop painting can evolve over time without the original art being compromised.

Above: This surrealist Photoshop art work takes the social network Facebook literally, creating a book out of this man's face. [source]

Above: Sometimes the line between surrealism and fantasy is blurred, as both art forms describe a world in which the impossible is a reality. The Photoshop painting above shows a world in which a girl is intertwined with tree roots and branches. The painting implies that the tree is animated, and a relationship exists between the girl and the tree. [source]

Above: A whimsical surrealist painting. The Photoshop artist has taken creatures that live in water, such as clown fish and a whale, and depicted them existing happily in air. [source]