April 2024 — Present | by Makaila Bryant
Archive of Liminal Artists
Latin for “threshold,” the word “liminal” describes moments that lie somewhere between reality and our imagination. Liminal images possess a duality — comforting yet off, familiar yet vague, strange yet inviting, showing a hidden side to life in the moments that are often overlooked and forgotten. Seeing a powerful liminal image feels like unlocking a deeply repressed memory.
The idea of liminality as an art movement is a relatively new concept; therefore, finding a collection of artists who create in this way isn’t easy to find. As an artist who is endlessly fascinated by liminality, I created this archive of incredible artists throughout history whose work shows the dream-like side of everyday life. Each name is linked to a larger body of the artist’s work.
I will continue to add my discoveries to this archive for research purposes and the hopes that these artists inspire others.
Edward Hopper (1882 — 1967)
Medium: Oil painting
Focus: Uncanny, dreamlike settings within urban America which felt lonely and isolated. Ambiguous figures made an appearance in his work, but only to heighten the intense, strange atmosphere.
Edward Hopper, Rooms by the Sea
John Register (1939 — 1996)
Medium: Oil painting
Focus: Isolated interiors with a dreamlike feel and otherworldly lighting, often featuring empty chairs representing both humanity and the lack thereof.
John Register, Motel, Route 66
Lynne Cohen (1944 — 2014)
Medium: Photography
Focus: Empty institutional interiors where intention often becomes lost without the presence of people.
Photograph by Lynne Cohen
Brent Wong (1945 — present)
Medium: Acrylic painting
Focus: Landscapes featuring both real and imagined forms. His work includes realistic depictions of energy and light, holographic forms in the sky and sea, and massive expanses of terrain.
Brent Wong, View of the Road
Hiroshi Nagai (1947 — present)
Medium: Acrylic painting
Focus: Associations with American vaporwave and Japanese city pop music genres, Nagai paints illustrations of deep blue skies drenched in light, scenes of tropical cities with a feeling of “the American dream” — utopic scenes of perfection and simplicity.
Painting by Hiroshi Nagai
Richard Cartwright (1951 — present)
Medium: Pastel; Oil painting
Focus: Mystery and elasticity of life, images held in the mind but often forgotten. The unusual choice of pastel as a medium gives his work a faded softness, another way of representing life’s impermanence.
Richard Cartwright, Full Moon Rising Over Orchard
Leonard Koscianski (1952 — present)
Medium: Oil painting
Focus: The individual’s perspective of modern society, highlighting its dark, weird, alien nature. By depicting viewpoints of those usually unseen, he finds the inherent objective qualities of places like sprawling suburbia.
Leonard Koscianski, Suburbia
Rob Browning (1956 — present)
Medium: Oil painting
Focus: Though many of his compositions include people as subjects, he paints suburbia in a way that exhibits its dreamy, unnatural perfection — identical houses, trees and clouds, all flawless and saturated in glowing light.
Rob Browning, May 11th
Medium: Acrylic and polyester fiber
Focus: Landscapes, particularly depicting trees shrouded in fog. His works are ghostly – it is unclear whether the landscape is disappearing or coming into form.
Kibong Rhee, The Left Page
Medium: Acrylic paint
Focus: Minimal landscapes in the midwest. Subjects in his paintings are often posed with their backs to the viewer, keeping their identity hidden and giving them a mysterious relatability.
Jamie Perry, The Space Between
Todd Hido (1968 — present)
Medium: Photography
Focus: Primarily known for his suburban interiors and exteriors, showcasing their dark, empty strangeness when divorced of people. His “Homes at Night” series (linked) is one of the best examples of liminal artwork, capturing places that are recognizable yet mysteriously vague and ambiguous.
Todd Hido, #2524
Kathleen Eaton (1971 — present)
Medium: Oil painting
Focus: Architectural spaces in suburban and urban areas which reflect “unexpected solitude".
Kathleen Eaton, Indigo Sunrise
Angela Lane (1974 — present)
Medium: Oil painting
Focus: Atmospheric and celestial phenomena, both observed and imagined. With incredibly naturalistic depictions of light occurrences, her work is truly something from another realm.
Angela Lane, Supralateral Arcs
Michael Brack (1975 —present)
Medium: Oil and acrylic paint
Focus: Strange and unsettling images bathed in unusual lighting.
Michael Brack, La boutique - The Store
Joanna Karpowicz (1976 — present)
Medium: Painting
Focus: Since 2012, she has focused on her “Anubis” series, featuring the Egyptian God of the dead dressed in everyday clothing, lurking in various familiar spaces to create works that are both haunting and peaceful. Her other works are just as curious and have a retro-futurist feel to them, often featuring mysterious flying objects.
Joanna Karpowicz, Cyclist and UFO
Markus Matthias Kruger (1981 — present)
Medium: Acrylic and oil paint
Focus: Uncanny order within the natural world.
Markus Mattias Kruger, See
Michael McCluskey (1984 — present)
Medium: Photography
Focus: Cinematic, dark and hazy atmospheres found within ordinary night life. Mccluskey often captures ambiguous buildings lit by strange glowing lights.
Photograph by Michael McCluskey
Steffen Kern (1988 — present)
Medium: Colored Pencil
Focus: Kern is interested in “our collective memory of images,” searching for images in his mind that represent a broader idea held in the mind of humanity.
Steffen Kern, Light, Bed, Window and TV
Jared Pike (? — present)
Medium: Digital
Focus: Recognized for his “Dream Pools” series featuring hyper-realistic digital renderings of infinite pool rooms, inspired by the minimalist white tile pool motif of the 70s.
From the “Dream Pools” series by Jared Pike
Gabrielle Traversat (? — present)
Medium: Digital
Focus: Amalgamations of suburban landscapes and architecture, creating impossible spaces out of real, believable elements. The result is familiar yet unnerving, lonely yet peaceful. The elusive artist mostly active on Tumblr and Instagram is the creator behind many images that have become viral sensations in recent years.
Digital work by Gabrielle Traversat
Gabrielle Salonga (? — present)
Medium: Digital
Focus: Hyper-realistic digital renderings of tranquil, imaginary places, often revolving around the concept of infinity. Her creations are intriguing and relaxing escapes with undertones of the dark, mysterious unknown.
Digital work by Gabrielle Salonga
Claire Buckley (? — present)
Medium: Acrylic paint
Focus: Abstract paintings of light and glimmers. Her works feel like spirits somewhere between heaven and earth.
From the “Glimmers” series by Claire Buckley
Conclusion
Liminality is a source of endless fascination for many people and has been represented by artists throughout time using a variety of different media. I hope you feel inspired to look at the world around you with a sense of wonder, especially in the quiet moments. As children we all wonder “how big is infinity?” and “what is nothing?” Liminal art allows us to ponder these abstract concepts once more, and helps broaden our perception of the world for a more complete viewpoint. Through these images we cherish the whole — even the dark, strange, and empty parts.
Updated December 25, 2024