October 19, 2023

“Baby Rando,” A Short Story by Robert Pope

“Baby Rando,” A Short Story by Robert Pope

Walt could not be more pleased with their baby boy, now they’d had him home a couple of weeks. With his fuzz of orange hair and sparkling green eyes, the child glowed. Rando laughed almost as soon as he came from the hospital. Ginger’s Dad called when he got back from The Islands. He could hardly believe it. He had given up hope of his only child making him a grandparent.   Rando came three weeks early, fully formed, Walt informed Ginger’s Dad. Would you believe it? A father at forty-two, after a double bypass hit him wham, sucker punch to the solar plexus. Ten days later he had this fine scar down his naked chest. They took the few chest hairs he had before surgery. Never grew back. He missed them. He had given each…

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August 2, 2020

Paulo Navarro — Surrealist Expressionist Paintings

Paulo Navarro — Surrealist Expressionist Paintings

As a university student, Paulo founded his own gallery and art academy. At first it was a children’s art academy (Pintando Ilusiones) and later PHI Gallery, where important established and emerging artists shared the space created by Paulo. This artist also participated in the “Circulo de artistas emergentes,” an emerging group of artists with which he traveled through various Latin American countries representing his nation, and created important exhibitions and artistic cultural projects.  Within this group, he exhibited in Costa Rican spaces as well as other destinations like Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba and Japan. He has also exhibited individually at the University of Costa Rica, at the Creative University. In Nicaragua, he has exhibited individually in the city of Granada in the Gallery of the Casa Los Tres Mundos Foundation. In Mexico, in the city of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon presented a sample of his work at the MuZiak Academy…

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July 23, 2019

Metamorphosis: Qinrui Chen’s Surrealistic BioArt

Metamorphosis: Qinrui Chen’s Surrealistic BioArt

Fictional Café is pleased to showcase the creative work of up-and-coming Shanghai artist Qinrui Chen. We believe her education in neuroscience adds a quite a unique perspective to her art. Artist’s Statement – “We can’t talk about surrealism without mentioning realism as a reference, like Godzilla and sci-fi – its distinct character is its ‘size of a building’ and fixation on the deconstruction of ‘office space.’ What makes it surreal but still manages to be meaningful is it brings us to reflect on questions of realism: how do we deal with the inner monster, how to seek the individual dream of a powerful superego in a suppressive social-political environment per Godzilla, or strangely per A Hundred Years of Solitude too (to some extent). “So I find the most realism I can: the medical image of…

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