// Michael Morris //

September, 1998

Massurrealism is the realization of a quest that explores the fertile ground that encompasses both reality and imagination -- the conscious and the subconscious. In Massurrealism the artists combine images from the outer world (the Mass) and inner world (the Surreal). Massurrealism thus brings disparate sides of our life into direct association, juxtaposing personal symbols with the imagery of mass culture, often combining the conflicts themselves -- the hard, pounding throb of a locomotive (mass transportation) charging forward and the soft, yielding form of a woman,swimming above and away; the trendy sophistication of a cocktail with the simple innocence of inquisitive goldfish. What is real, we might ask. What is imagined? These new images offer a glimpse into a universal hologram; a view that points at something beyond just images; a vision that may explain nothing -- yet might just explain everything. As such, Massurrealism pursues what is perhaps the ultimate realism.

MASSUREALISM DEFINED
First is the idea of mass, from the mass media of television, advertising and the Internet to the products of mass production -- Alarm clocks,, automobiles, trains, jet aircraft, etc. from mass culture --Soda cans,cocktails, beach balls, swimming pools, etc -- to the inexplicable mass of particle physics, energy, and the oneness of the
Universe.

Like Rembrandt, the massurrealist immerses the viewer in the details of daily life. Like Van Gogh, expresses the energy and power of light, the shimmering reality of objects themselves and like Warhol shows the reality of the generic objects themselves. The surreal draws also from many sources -- from dreams and insights, hopes and fears, longings, half-explained desires and other subconscious mysteries.. Yet it is surreal as well, because what stays behind after the fact is our individual remembrance, our own interpretation of that reality. This is where it becomes interesting, in the different personalities and techniques of each artist.

Were Andrew Wyeth, Edward Hopper and Thomas Eakins mere realists? Or can we find something more than reality in the barrenness of a woman alone in a field, or the smoldering sexuality of a man and his secretary in a small office, or the vibrant highlights and deep shadows of rowers on the Schuylkill – something remembered or dreamed, something surreal?

The surreal is the visual narration of our subconscious. It is the creative force, the intuitive, the autonomic. It is our imagination. What is real is what is happening now. It is that which is agreed upon only now. Today, both of these thrusts -- the outside and the inside -- have begun to intrude even more violently into our minds. Music on the streets becomes louder, the broken beer bottles and wrappers from Burger King more invasive. Yet against these shouts and chaos there is also quiet and order -- Mozart and Bix Biederbecke are only the flick of a switch away. A peaceful sunset,the solemn waters of a lake ripple only steps away. Each of us is attracted and yet frightened by this beginnings of a global culture, of new knowledge about the universes, large and small, the questions of our place within these. There is a new unavoidable unfolding of spirituality on the inside. A collective awareness of global awakening.And these are all ideas and realities that Massurrealism confronts,, addresses and embraces. A raising of the unconsciousness to the surface. [...]

Compiled May, 1992

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