If you’re someone who gets sincere joy out of scouring pictures of beautiful artwork, the Instagram page of Austin Howlett should be on your list. With nearly 77,000 followers and counting, Howlett describes himself as a “professional artist specializing in surreal figurative oil painting”—and from what we’ve seen on his page, we can’t argue with those claims.
Surreal is definitely one word to accurately describe Howlett’s paintings, but his oil canvases let loose a handful of other qualities; one of them being sheer talent. It’s not hard to see that the artist is incredibly skilled, which serves as a solid foundation for the radical creative adventures he takes.
Whether it’s a young woman who seems to be “fused” with the branches of a tree, or giant humans roaming around grandiose natural landscapes, Howlett cleverly designs his pieces in such a way that everything seems organic.
His art, while surreal, still has a quaint softness to it. It doesn’t ever feel off-putting or harsh, a goal that many other radical painters tend to strive for. Rather, Howlett strikes a perfect balance between imagination and foundation, and it’s not hard to see why his work is so popular.
