A fashion for dark, sinister and macabre art is set to explode onto the art scene in 2011. Fore-fronting the contemporary flare to produce baleful, creepy and slightly bizarre art is Swedish artist Mia Makila.

Mia Makila, who is best known Boschian style in her mixed media works, is influenced by the work of modern film directors, including Ingmar Bergman, Tim Burton and John Waters. As well as being affected by contemporary cinema, Makila’s work often projects the menacing and Gothic style of the 14^th century, which was dominated by dark oil paintings that represented a shift from the Dark ages into a more civilized and prosperous society.

The artist describes her work as “lowbrow and horror art”, whilst admitting she paints her nightmares and demons as an attempt to eradicate them. Her bizarre amalgamation of mixed media images, paintings and digital artworks diversify from fairytale subversion, a critique of popular culture, to manipulation and distortion of human portraits.

“The motifs of my artworks are scary and macabre, but they also have a dark sense of humour. The paintings and collages are my poems, my dairy notes and they are very close to my heart,” said Mia Makila.

Although the Mia Makila is not the only artist, past or present, to be committed to depicting dark and disturbing images. The Spanish artist Francisco Goya was renowned for his sinister and macabre artwork. ‘Saturn Devouring His Son’, is Goya’s most famous ‘disturbing’ painting. The painting depicts the Greek myth of the Titan Cronus, who, fearing that his children would overthrow him, ate each child at their birth. The painting was part of a collection known as “Black Paintings”, which Goya painting directly onto the walls of his house in the early 1800s.

If dark, sinister and macabre art seduces your senses, then you may want to attend April A Taylor’s dark, unusual and unique photographic exhibition in 2011. Having been cited as capturing ‘the seduction of horror’ and the photographer being a ‘true gem of the art of horror creations’, the work of April A Taylor certainly contends the contemporary urge for unique and dark forms of art.

Taylor’s exhibition, titled ‘Dark Art’ is being displayed at a convention at the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, from February 18 – February 20 2011. The following month ‘Dark Art’ will be exhibited at the Hilton Memphis, from March 25 – March 27 2011. Taylor’s final exhibition is to take place at the Sheraton Novi, Michigan, from April 15 – April 17 2011.

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