Artist Highlight
Eyajo December Joseph (EDJ) is an artist as surreal, dark and uncanny as his pieces, within his own ecosystem of Apex Surrealism. Eyajo is a painter and an illustrator, preferring the mediums of acrylic, watercolor and ink.
As an Apex Surrealist, his style and spirit are distinct and deliberate, paying homage to the great surrealist, expressionist, figurative and absurdist artists of past and present. His bold and visionary art represents a new voice, expression and narrative that has shocked and disrupted the traditional norms of the art world.
Eyajo expresses and paints primarily with acrylics on all sizes of canvas, particularly on large canvases, creating renderings that transform walls and rooms into exotic galleries and preternatural fantasy dimensions. A poet at heart, with published books of his poetry, he paints the fantastical dreams and nightmares in one’s mind, populated by uncanny figures, creatures and landscapes that are borne from his dreams, his poetry, lyrics of his music and the lives and fairytales of our past and present.
Born in Indiana, living and based in Los Angeles, his life’s thesis is to paint the world’s next chapter of Surrealism, his own sub-genre called Apex Surrealism.
Eyajo is also the vocalist/lyricist/songwriter of the Goth Rock band Black Heroin Gallery and the co-founder/co-songwriter of the legendary Death Rock band AstroVamps.
Apex Surrealism
Apex Surrealism is borne of uninhibited and raw inspiration. It is not planned or premeditated. It derives from authentic and genuine inspiration. It paints the brush to canvas of its own volition, free of disturbance, influence, objective and norms.
The only thought process is the single source of inspiration during its contemporaneous moment of reveal. The rendering starts when inspiration possesses the conduit (the Artist) and ends when the brush no longer serves its purpose.
Apex Surrealism is not an extreme or vanguard form. It is not a peak or summit. It is merely a representation, a true rendering of the Artist’s apex of spirit and originality, one that is boldly undeniable and uncontrollable. Its frenetic energy is magnetized to the canvas and beckons the brush to be unleashed.
It must follow then that the final creation can only be one of one. Every Numbered Rendering is a genuine one-of-a-kind, never to be repainted in its original form, as no two inspirations are ever the same.