Canadian magic realist Rob Gonsalves likes to portray the juxtapsotion of two differing but related points of view.

These are often presented in scenes in which objects gradually morph through a series of similar shapes into something else entirely, and compositions in which two different aspects of the same scene are viewed at an entirely different scale, but are gradually joined into parts of a seemingly impossible whole.

Gonsalves plays with similar themes in a variety of compositions. There are also other repeated themes, such as scenes in which bodies of water in the distance gradually become something else in the foreground- stretches of mirrored tiles or a crowd with umbrellas.

I mentioned in my previous post about Gonsalves, that I see his work in a way as a collision between visual approaches to rearranging reality utilized by M.C. Escher and René Magritte.

Some of Gonsalves’ brain-teasing shifts in reality are more successful than others, but at their best they can give you that delightful “Ah-ha!” feeling as your perception slips from one level to another.

In all of them it’s fun to trace through his transitions and try to decide exactly where one view of the world transforms into the other.

Gonsalves works in acrylic, and in the short video you can see here on YouTube, shows the scale of his work and describes the time frame for painting an individual painting as about two months.

Gonsalves does not appear to have an official web presence. Since I last wrote about him, one of the resources I knew of has disappeared, but there is a new one that is even a bit more comprehensive.

You may find other resources by searching, but most of what I’ve found to date is redundant with the two gallery sites I’ve listed below.

Unfortunately, none of them have images that are very large.

There are books featuring Gonsalves’ work, though they’re not exactly collections, but combinations of his images with bits of text and aimed at children: Imagine a Day, Imagine a Night and Imagine a Place. Each contains about 16 or 17 pictures by the artist.

You can also find a 2012 Master of Illusion wall calendar featuring his work, and similar calendars from previous years if you just want them for the images.

Gonsalves’ work is also featured in, and highlighted on the cover of, Masters of Deception, a collection of work by 20 artists working in illusionistic styles that includes 16 pages on Gonsalves.

Peder Severin Krøyer (sometimes Peter or just P.S. Krøyer) was born in Norway but moved to Denmark with his foster parents at an early age.

He studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Art, traveled Europe and studied in Paris, where he was introduced to the work of the French Impressionists, an influence that resonates in his open, painterly, color-filled later work.

When he returned to Denmark he spent time painting in a remote fishing village called Skagen, and began to divide his time between Skagen and a studio in Copenhagen. Kroyer became the unofficial leader of an arts colony that sprang up in Skagen, and you will find reference to the group as the Skagen Painters. The Skagens Museum is dedicated to the group.

There is currently an exhibition, Krøyer; an international perspective at the Hirschprung Collection in Copenhagen where it will be on view until 10 April, 2012. After that it moves to the Skagens Museum where it will be on view from 5 April to 2 September, 2012.

There are scattered sources for Krøyer’s work in the web. Two of the best are Michael Hirsh’s Painters I should Have Known About (004) Peter Krøyer on his always superb Articles And Texticles blog, which also has some images of Skagen; and an article on a blog titled ensuciando las paredes.

Like the painting by John Atkinson Grimshaw that I mentioned in my recent post on that artist, Krøyer’s painting Interior of a Tavern (images above, third down) is one I love to revisit when at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

[Addendum: Though I didn’t see it on the Hirschsprung site, there is a catalog for the exhibition available from the Skagens museum. (Thanks to Ron Washington)]

As countries go, the United States is fairly large, both in population and area, and in our history of art there are often “regional” artists worthy of note that don’t receive the attention they’re due.

This seems to particularly apply to artists from those areas of the country that some of the societal elite in New York and California like to refer to as the “flyover states”.

This comes under the heading of “You don’t know what you’re missing”, and as a case in point, the Bone Creek Museum of Agrarian Art in David City, Nebraska has organized a traveling exhibition of work by Nebraska (and David City) favorite son Dale Nichols, titled Dale Nichols: Transcending Regionalism.

Nichols studied at The Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago, lived and worked in Chicago for a number of years and taught at the University of Illinois. He eventually travelled extensively, finally settling in Arizona.

All the while, however, he painted “remembered” scenes of his native Nebraska, resisting all pressure to bow to the modernist establishment. His paintings were based on an artistic philosophy that didn’t change much over the course of his long career. He did, however, stress the geometry of his landscapes, with flat areas of color forming sharply defined planes, and even trees having a sort of geometric “wrapper”, an effect I particularly enjoy in his work.

Nichols was noted for his snow scenes, and reportedly got his areas of flat color by applying oil color in thin layers with watercolor brushes.

Sometimes he mixed his Nebraska scenes with elements from his travels, leading to paintings in which mountains and tropical vegetation from his trips to Central America appear in a Nebraska farm scene.

Nichols was also an illustrator and printmaker, working in woodcarvings and lithographs. His lithographs of Nebraska farm scenes are strongly graphic and wonderfully evocative of light and mood.

Unfortunately, I can’t find a large repository of images of his work on the web, though I’ve listed what resources I can find below. One of the best sources is Christie’s past lots, of which many images are zoomable.

There is a book accompanying the traveling exhibition, Dale Nichols Transcending Regionalism, published by the Bone Creek Museum of Agrarian Art, and a Facebook page devoted to the book and exhibition.

The exhibition is currently at the Georgia Museum of Art, where it will be on view until February 27, 2011; it then moves to the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts from March 17 to June 17, 2012.

[Suggestion courtesy of John Derry]