Dead See 1960

Abdul Mati Klarwein made "Dead See" with oils, and it’s a trip, right? There’s this unreal desert landscape rendered in super smooth gradients, which gives it this hyperreal quality. Like a dream, or an hallucination. The colors are warm, almost lurid, in shades of orange, yellow, and red. The paint is applied so smoothly that the forms feel like they’ve been rendered with an airbrush. But then you notice these weird floating faces with single eyes staring back at you. The addition of these surreal, almost psychedelic elements complicates everything. Look how the textures of the rock formations contrast with the smoothness of the faces. It’s as if Klarwein is playing with different realities, layering the natural world with something else entirely. This reminds me of some of the visionary landscapes of Max Ernst, but with an added layer of mysticism. With it’s hallucinatory quality, "Dead See" invites you to lose yourself in its ambiguous depths.