BEAUTY: Painting--Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber

The Royal Art Lodge was a Winnipeg art collective, now-disbanded. But two of the members, Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber have continued making art together under their own names. I am absolutely in love with their series of paintings called "Animals With Sharpies," which is hilarious, ironic, touching, and poignant all at once. As with most art which shows animals behaving in human ways, it says more about human traits than the animals themselves. Look at the array of animal "personalities" which are actually comments about qualities we traditionally attribute to these creatures, but with human intentions and ideas. It's not only about what they are writing or thinking, but what they are capable of writing or thinking: some write beautiful poetry, others write recipes, while others write nonsense.

http://www.royalartlodge.com/indexmichaelneil.html

Their blog features many outstanding paintings chock full of marvelous insights and ideas:http://personalmessageblog.blogspot.com/