Surreal and Magical Realism Fine Art by William Otto

The consistent theme that underlies my creative process is the dream experience. In the dream, all of the personalities, situations, locations, objects, etc., are in some way an expression of the person dreaming, thrown up by the subconscious to be experienced in such a way as to suggest other dimensions; realms that depart from the order of things as we experience them in waking consciousness. As an artist it is this suggestion of other dimensions accessed through the psychic experience of the dream that provides the link to surrealism and magical realism as a form of artistic expression. My source for developing this approach to the creative process was achieved in part by researching Carl Jungs theories of the subconscious, as well as researching the evolution of the surrealist aesthetic that seemed to run through art history centuries before its mature expression in the twentieth century.