Laura Quinn is a UK artist who focuses on wildlife art, portraits and pet portraits.

She works in Alkyd, a medium closely related to oil, but with a fast drying synthetic resin as the binder instead of linseed oil. Her approach pays particular attention to the textural qualities of her subjects.

Many of her pet portraits are composed more like portraits of people than is common for pet portraits, giving them an appealing immediacy.

Originally from the UK and now living in Australia, painter Mike Worrall is essentially self-taught.

His work shows a range of fascinating influences, from Velázquez — particularly evident in Worrall’s fascination with those bizarrely wide gowns seen in portraits of the Spanish royal family — to other 17th century painters, to Surrealists like Paul Delvaux, René Magritte and Max Ernst, and perhaps magic realists like George Tooker and others.

In many cases, Worrall makes direct reference to the work of past painters — such as his obvious homage to Magritte shown above. Worrell, however, tends to be more visceral in his presentation of the textures of the real world in his dream-like images than Magritte or most of the original Surrealists.

Worrall has worked at times as a concept artist for the film industry, bringing his dream state imagination to such films a Alien III.

The galleries on Worrell’s website are arranged by year, and extend back to the mid-90s; There are brief interviews with the artist on Combustus and Nightmare magazine.

I’m particularly fascinated by Worrall’s compositions involving storefronts, with their intricate reflections, ghostly faces or figures, and a sense they create of their facades as transitional points for other planes of space and time.

[Via beinART Collective]

[Note: some images on the linked sites may be NSFW]