France Fantastic Realism
Hipkiss is the pseudonym of Alpha and Christopher Mason, both artists born in 1964 in Britain.
The artists began working together in the UK, then moved to France, where they continue to live and work. They are known for detailed, detailed figurative drawings created in a mixed media technique that combines pencil, silver ink and metallic foil. The artists draw large-scale urban landscapes, landscapes, strange insects, plants and birds, depicting images of a utopian future where nature has conquered the industrial environment.
Raymond-Émile Waydelich is a French-Alsatian painter, sculptor and action artist. He lives and works in Hindisheim/Alsace.
Waydelich's extensive oeuvre includes paintings, sculptures and sculptures in ceramic or bronze, assemblages, works on paper as well as public art actions and performances. The artistic techniques of his colourful, playful, witty and whimsical graphics range from drawing, watercolour, lithography, etching and monotype to overpaintings of found paper objects.
He is one of France's best-known living artists. His works are in numerous public and private collections worldwide. His watercolour collages have become particularly famous, showing real-life creatures (crocodile, cat, pig) ghostly alienated within landscapes, which the artist painted on antique letters, some of which he acquired on journeys (e.g. to Crete). His style, which often takes up perspectives, motifs and elements of prehistoric cave paintings or Greek mythology, approaches fantastic realism.