Surrealism - why I fell into that rabbit hole and why it should be explored by more artists in the modern age

The one word I've heard more than any other to describe the 2020s was surreal. So much happened so fast it was difficult for anyone to keep track of everything - two years of Covid-19 lockdown, morally repulsive xenophobic white nationalism in the US including a violent insuurrection of Jan 2021 (not to mention similar extremist movements in the UK, Australia, and especially Russia in its invasion of Ukraine), hundreds of natural disasters breaking every record in frequency and intensity year over year, erosion of trust in public health and basic pillars of science, major social reckonings of both police violence (too many American police - by totalitarian design - act more like gangsters, not Peelian Principle-trained law enforcement) and equally abusive cruelty towards Native American women and Indigenous peoples ... the list is so long I could never write it all in a single blog post. In the midst of all the division and conflict, the one thing that most people could agree on was that everything felt surreal (even after 2016 had already been given that word as its 'word of the year'.) The public streets empty of life honestly looked like a David Lynch film set than reality. So it should be no surprise that during the 2020s lockdown, I went down the rabbit hole of the 20th century surrealist movement. These artists - poets, painters, sculptors, writers, filmmakers - weren't just making art for the sake of a weird trend, but to set a permanent movement in art, one still being felt to this day. Although most scholars attribute the start of this artistic movement to André Breton's two books of Manifeste du Surrealisme (1924 and 1930), it's more accurate to say thatt the surreliast movement as a whole was a massive effort by hundreds, maybe thousands, of artists and visionaries who aimed at using their dream-like imagery to show how strange real life was, showing the obvious flaws in restrictive social norms and outdated rules and customs created by colonialist abuse. It shouldn't be a surprise then that most of these surrealist artists were refugees, queers, BIPOC -anyone who had a bone to pick against xenophobic customs and oppresive regimes of the 1920s, and there were many with a bone to pick. The original movement occured right in between two world wars, causing a unique opportunity to challenge the oppresive status quo in no uncertain terms, much like what's happening right now in the 2020s. My art in this post, titled "... that aged well." (2021), was my first true surrealist piece by design. At the time, I was feeling overwhelmed with everything that happened in just two years, but in hindsight, even that feels small compared to the economic, political, and social damage that has accumulated by 2026. I admit what has been most aggravating for me in this surreal time has been the total collapse of political normality among the rise of the Fourth Reich of MAGA. Besides inciting an insurrection to stop the 2021 ballot count, besides the ressurgence of levels of prejudice straight out the medieval Dark Ages, the ICE Gestapo have killed dozens in custody since 2025 - Heber Sanchaz Domínguez, Victor Manula Diaz, Parady La, Kyus Beltran Yanez Cruz, Luis Gustavo Nune Caceres, and Geraldo Lunas Campos were all killed in ICE custody in just the first six weeks of 2026, with another 30+ dead in custody during 2025. That doesn't include Renee Good or Alex Pretti, both executed in broad daylight simply for observing, or trying to help bystanders. NO, Renee and Alex were not "domestic terrorists" - they were executed for standing up to the MAGA regime, plain and simple. I certainly didn't expect to see all of this (and worse) in my lifetime, nevermind before I turned 30. ------------------------------------------------------ I mean, art has always been a medium of direct, and at times brutally honest, communication to the masses, screaming the truth when words are censored. Art has always given voices and exposed hard truths, but surrealism is much more up-front about it. I've always had a thing for the weird and eclectic, especially if it gives me opportunities to experiment in differnet media/medium or genres, but my biggest reason for persuing surrealism is that the 20th century movement already proved its capacity as an unapologetically honest and direct veichle of communication that exposes oppresive norms and xenophobic medieval beliefs that have no value or place in the 20th or the 21st century.

I strongly believe the original surrealist movement was its own form of social resistance, flowering in all its colors in a time where the entire world order seemed to be in jeapordy. It gave voices to those queer, BIPOC, Inidigenous, and refugees who needed to be heard in a manner that history would remember them. And their voices and their stories have still persisted, despite tyrants' attempts to erase history - the more you try to censor something, the more likely it's going to break out the cage anyway.

I've heard a saying that "art is best when the world sucks the most" -- art has always been a mechanism to protest and to challenge any tyrant, dictator, or asshole that dares put its cold black boot on the neck of integrity, propserity, peace, and truth. It was Jean-Luc Picard that said "the first duty of a Starfleet officer is to the truth, wether it is scientific truth, or historical truth, or personal truth!" I strongly believe that should be the guiding principle of not just a healthy society, but to any surreliast or artist of any genre or medium. When words are censored, art screams the truth and it doesn't apologize. Surrealism is even more up front about it, and its already proven that for over a hundred years. Now is the time for art. Now is the time to scream the truth - even if your art has to get weird in order to tell the truth. I'd rather be called a weirdo than a liar, any day.

".. that aged well." Photoshop painting, 2021. Self-portrait of artist amongst characters from "Professional Idiot" creative project - (left to right) Steve the Chicken, Eddie the Chef, Norman "Bruce" Bates, Z. Daly, Moses Garcías, Paul Rockwell, Rapty the Roboraptor.