Kostas Seremetis is a Boston born artist who has lived and worked in New York City for many years. This human is a volcano of creativity who has the power to create paintings, film and sculpture that will blow your motherfucking mind! I really dig the way that he is able to flip pop culture on its’ head and show us the beauty in the absurd. Honesty, I have never seen a piece of his work that I wasn’t into. This is why today CVLT Nation salutes Kostas Seremetis with a huge art essay of his work after the jump! Also, make sure to check the most recent CULT video “Elemental Light,” which he directed…FUCK YEAH Kostas Seremetis RULES!

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This year, we decided that rather than telling you what our favorite art posts of the year were, we would take a look at what your favorite art posts of 2012 were. It is an insight into the weird brains of our readers to see the strange and disturbing artworks you were so fond of this year. Maybe it’s the impending change of era, or maybe it’s just what you’re into, but the top visited art posts of 2012 show that our readers not only have excellent taste in art, they are also fascinated with artists who trawl the depths of human evil and depravity. I should mention, H.R. Giger was technically the top art post of 2012, but since he made it to the top of one of our other lists, I decided to go with numbers 2 through 7 for this post. Check out your top 6 picks below and after the jump!

Numer 6: Lucifer’s Sun…NESTOR AVALOS Art Spotlight

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Early this week, CVLT Nation celebrated an icon of underground art, Joe Coleman with an awesome art essay (peep it HERE). Today we are featuring the 1997 documentary about him entitled R.I.P…Rest in Pieces: A Portrait of Joe Cole. I could not stop watching this film because it’s interesting from the very first frame. While watching this film, you will see a New York that no longer exists and go into the mind of Joe Coleman, both are pretty bugged out places! Check out the streaming link to R.I.P…Rest in Pieces: A Portrait of Joe Cole after the jump!

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Joe Coleman’s paintings always come from planet freak mode, where the abnormal is the normal! In his twisted world you will find Charlie Manson, Harry Houdni, Hank Williams, Ed Gein, P.T. Barnum and many more. The detail in Joe’s work is amazing, but it’s also the stories that his paintings tell that will leave you transfixed. When I look at his work, I know I’m looking into the mind of a person who has always seen the world on his own terms. This is why today CVLT Nation would like to celebrate the work of Joe Coleman with a huge art essay. Step into the new normal and peep the art of a true American original after the jump!

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I have always been fascinated with art and artists. Especially artists who throw themselves wholly into their creations, so that you almost can’t tell where the art ends and their lives begin. Bryan Lewis Saunders is one such artist, a person whose being is fully consumed by his art, to the point that he has become his most prolific subject. Saunders has created more than 8,000 8 1/2″ x 11″ self-portraits – he has been doing one each day since March 30th, 1995 – and they have been dubbed “The Endlessly Reconstructing Auto-Autopsy.” That means that his experience, emotions and energy from each of the days he has lived over the past 17 years is immortalized on a page of one of his hardbound sketchbooks. Through his self-portraits, one can see the true human experience, because despite our best intentions, we all live subjectively. He has curated collections of the self-portraits so that they can be viewed by theme, and of course, he has a collection of “under the influence” images of himself, tripping on everything from Morphine IVs at the hospital to nature’s fungal gifts to the designer drug of choice today, bath salts. The images from this collection truly reflect the place your mind goes when it’s being expanded/damaged/poisoned by chemicals both natural and manufactured. Looking through these definitely reminds me why I mostly chose the hippie route in my drug selection. After the jump, check out a gallery of his “Drugs” self-portraits (hover over the image thumbnail to see his drug of choice), and make sure to check out his other collections on his site, which include “Pain,” “Love” and “Anxiety.”

I have a guilty pleasure, one that I don’t share with a lot of people, but I guess it’s as good a time as any to out myself – I sometimes really enjoy a good epic fantasy novel, one that has too much drama and a good amount of sex. So it goes without saying that I appreciate the art of Luis Royo, the Spanish fantasy artist behind countless book and magazine covers, comics and 10 published titles. He is perhaps best known for being one of Heavy Metal magazine’s most frequently used cover artists, and while mainstream tastes may have changed when it comes to their heroines, Royo’s 80s hair metal video vixens have remained the same throughout his lengthy career – hi-cut-g-string-clad and boobs aplenty. Both his men and his women grip massive swords and stand cold and strong, intensely staring down fantastic creatures with menace born of experience. Their totem creatures watch over them as they slaughter gremlins, gargoyles and robots – who are all stunned by the beauty of their destroyer as he or she poses for Royo’s brush, before I imagine they are decapitated or disemboweled. Check out some of Royo’s work after the jump, including all of the covers he did for Heavy Metal…

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Have you ever looked at a picture and knew you were looking at true evil that was actually real beauty? Nestor Avalos is a master of the dark arts of graphic design and morbid handmade illustrations. What separates him from many is that he draws from this world’s gruesome history to help create his scenes of pain and anguish. Nestor has a way of using shapes within the shadows to add to the torment. His imagery has a medieval quality and a ghost-like essence. His hand drawn pieces scream in the voices of the horrific demons that must be flying around his imagination as he scrawls them. Nestor’s work is rich in the truth that most people try to hide from. Today, CVLT Nation celebrates the dark wizard of art, Nestor Avalos – check out a gallery of his work after the jump!

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Animetalphysical is Sean Reynolds Williams, as well as the stunning visuals behind much of Pallbearer‘s vinyl and merch. His illustrations and paintings contemplate existence on a metaphysical level, taking the viewer into a place of deep meditation where he explores esoteric planes of thought and dimension. Whether in black and white or vivid color, his work is captivating, and it’s easy to see how well his imagery works with the heavy resounding tones of Pallbearer’s music. He plays with perspective in a way that draws the eye to many places at once, but without creating confusion. It’s more like seeing through the wormhole into several different worlds that all coexist at once. Space figures prominently in many of his pieces, whether as a backdrop of bursting stars or as planets inhabited by surreal beings, and lends a sense of the mysteries of the universe to his work. Animetalphysical’s imagery goes hand in hand with a mind’s eye turned translucent by sticky clouds of weed smoke, open to all the possibilities of the imagination’s journey. After the jump, check out a gallery of his work, some of which are available for sale through his Facebook page.
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I studied William Blake’s poetry in grade 12, and while I found his writings haunting and beautiful, if someone had told me he was also a prolific artist, I would have been so much more interested in him. In fact, I had no idea he was an artist until I was given a book of his illustrations a few years later. Characterized as a Romantic or Pre-Romantic artist, to me, Blake is more of an OG metal artist, in that his work invokes the monsters of humanity and the fear of the evil supernatural so often referred to in metal imagery. He depicts Satan and dark angels in human form, demonstrating how darkness exists in humanity instead of as an animal, outside force. His work is extremely unique and in a genre of its own. Biblical imagery makes up the majority of his inspiration, but as opposed to the usual blind reverence shown for Christianity, Blake communicates the sinister atmosphere of judgment that organized religion imposes on its followers. Blake’s last artistic commission was a series of watercolors for Dante’s Divine Comedy in 1826, cut short by his death in 1827. These watercolors embody the macabre spirit of Dante’s work, and Blake captures the suffering souls and sinners to perfection. For a devout man, he certainly had a talent for creating dark and disturbing depictions of punishment and hell. After the jump, check out a selection of Blake’s paintings…

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Passing by the walls of urban environments and seeing the different art that has found its way there fascinates me. It was on my first trip to London that I realized that street art was global, but when I went to Rome, I really knew it – it was everywhere. Walking around Old Street in east London in the early 2000′s is where I began to see the various languages that the artists spoke with the techniques they used. What sparked my imagination is how some artists used the landscape as a part of the story they were trying to convey. Phlegm is one of those kinds of street artists, one that makes his environment work for him so that he can draw you into his narrative. His characters are highly detailed and very bold. Phlegm’s work is so striking that when I look at it, I lose myself in his surreal world. Phlegm also creates comics and books of his ink drawings, and is working on a new one that will include a foldout of his “Civilization” artwork. CVLT Nation would like to salute this artist for creating art that is so weird it’s our brand new normal. After the jump, peep a huge gallery of Phlegm’s pieces and a video of him at work.
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