BEAUTY: Painting--Pat Rocha

Pat Rocha says he and his nine other siblings lived in a haunted house when he was young, which might explain the ghostly goings-on in his Romantic Realist art. His website bio says, "Child-like images, adult emotions, the jet-set, the ill and unfortunate and the ghosts they leave behind are the things that have inspired Rocha's recent series of work." In each of these often heartbreaking images, someone from a place not quite our reality is trying to reach out, to connect. The last image, with a hand appearing out of nowhere to stroke a dog, is possibly the most beautiful and touching.

Top to bottom: Burden of Memory; Departure; Donner Party; Dreamer Scheamer; Guardian Angel; Lost and Found

http://www.patrocha.com/