(Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Flora)

Jan Švankmajer (born 4 September 1934 in Prague>) is a Czech surrealist artist. His work spans several media. He is known for his surreal animations and features, which have greatly influenced other artists such as Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, The Brothers Quay and many others.

Švankmajer has gained a reputation over several decades for his distinctive use of stop-motion technique, and his ability to make surreal, nightmarish and yet somehow funny pictures. He is still making films in Prague at the time of writing.

Švankmajer’s trademarks include very exaggerated sounds, often creating a very strange effect in all eating scenes. He often uses very sped-up sequences when people walk and interact. His movies often involve inanimate objects coming alive and being brought to life through stop-motion. Food is a favourite subject and medium. Stop-motion features in most of his work, though his feature films also include live action to varying degrees.

A lot of his movies, like the short film Down to the Cellar, are made from a child’s perspective, while at the same time often having a truly disturbing and even aggressive nature. In 1972 the communist authorities banned him from making films, and many of his later films were banned. He was almost unknown in the West until the early 1980s.

(Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Svankmajer)

Richard Sala is an American cartoonist, illustrator, and comic book creator with a unique expressionistic style whose books often combine elements of mystery, horror and whimsy.

His books include Hypnotic Tales (1992), Black Cat Crossing (1993), The Ghastly Ones (1995), The Chuckling Whatsit (1997), Peculia (2002), Maniac Killer Strikes Again! (2003), Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires (2005), Mad Night (2005) and The Grave Robber’s Daughter (2006).

Sala has mentioned the influence of his childhood years on his work. Growing up in a family dominated by an angry abusive father, he sought refuge in comic books and horror films, which he cites as having helped him deal with his real life fears. After attending college as an art major, and finally earning a Master of Fine Arts Degree in painting from Mills College, he took a job at a University Library which he supplemented with illustration jobs. Eventually, he discovered he was earning more from his part-time illustration work than his library job and decided to make the leap to freelancing full-time. Along the way he had self-published a book of drawings and text in 1984 titled Night Drive.

More of a reflection of his art school education than a typical comic book, Night Drive nevertheless ended up opening doors for Sala that would eventually lead to his rediscovering and embracing his childhood love of comics and monsters. The book came to the attention of several individuals who contacted Sala to request work. These included Art Spiegelman, Monte Beauchamp and Colossal Pictures and resulted in his appearances in two highly regarded comic anthologies - Spiegelman’s RAW and Beauchamp’s BLAB!. Colossal Pictures hired Sala to animate one of the stories from Night Drive called “Invisible Hands”. This was eventually expanded by Sala and director Denis Morella into a 12-minute story about a psychic detective, a hooded criminal, taxidermy, a costume party and a secret society of one-handed killers, all done in Sala’s usual tongue-in-cheek style. Divided into 2-minute chapters so it could be shown as a serial, “Invisible Hands” debuted on the first season of Liquid Television Show, which also featured the television debuts of Beavis and Butthead and Æon Flux.

Since then, Sala has continued as a prolific illustrator and comic book artist. Two of his books, The Chuckling Whatsit and Mad Night began as serials. They are epic thrillers - each one a tour de force of complex storytelling and black humor, with characters that range from beautiful pirate women to violent lunatics and grotesques to a “girl detective” named Judy Drood. The Chuckling Whatsit first appeared in the anthology Zero Zero. Mad Night was initially serialized in Sala’s 12-issue comic book series Evil Eye, published by Fantagraphics Books. Evil Eye also introduced possibly Sala’s most intriguing character, Peculia, a mysterious black-haired barefoot waif whose fairy-tale inspired adventures include run-ins with murderous children, necrophiles, cat-women and zombies.

Sala has also worked on projects with Lemony Snicket, Steve Niles and The Residents and illustrated Doctor Sax and The Great World Snake, a remarkable rediscovered script written in the 1960s by Jack Kerouac, which, like Sala’s own work, makes use of pulp genre conventions such as vampires and shadowy avengers.

(Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sala)

Esao Andrews is a painter, Baker Skateboardsillustrator/designer and Meathaus Collective member. His art depicts a blend of the grotesque, erotic and surreal in a manner in keeping with other American artists like Mark Ryden and John Currin. He attended Red Mountain High School In Mesa Arizona. He recently had a shared show with John John Jesse. He has produced cover art for Circa Survive’s album Juturna, as well as their May 2007 release, On Letting Go.

Andrews also produces flash animations, for which Vector Park’s Patrick Smith has served as acknowledged mentor.

Mr. Andrews recently had a story published in the original 1001 Nights of Snowfall.

Esao Andrews is also an honorary member of the legendray crew “The Piss Drunx”. The Piss Drunx includes a roster of famous skateboarders and artists alike. Including Jim Greco, Andrew Reynolds, Ali Boulala and Joseph “Jough Jough” Dancer.

(Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esao_Andrews)

Maggie Taylor (born 1961 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an artist who works with digital images. She won the Santa Fe Center for Photography’s Project Competition in 2004. Her work has been widely exhibited in the United States and Europe and is represented within the permanent collections of several galleries and museums. She is the fifth wife of American photographer, Jerry Uelsmann.

She produces prints by scanning objects into a computer using a flatbed scanner, then layering and manipulating these images using Adobe Photoshop into a surrealistic montage. These are printed on Somerset Velvet watercolour paper, using the Iris printing process.

(Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggie_Taylor)

Tim Biskup (b. September 21, 1967 in Santa Monica, California) is an American artist generally considered to be a part of the group that has been dubbed “Lowbrow (art movement)” or pop surrealism.

He works with playful and vibrant psychedelic imagery  in the pop-design genre that emerged in the late 20th century through such diverse media as silkscreening, textile production, and rotocast vinyl.

His free-spirited style recalls 1950s storybook illustration, with bright colors and whimsical shapes unrestricted by the black outlining typically used in character design.

During his Ether Show in the summer of 2007, Biskup displayed works from his self-dubbed Baroque Modernist style based on fear, loss, and pain.

(Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Biskup)