Pretty little girls wandering the streets of modern big cities on their own is not a common sight, but spotting bears on these same streets would be considerably more unexpected.
However, in the world of Houston-based Texan artist Kevin Peterson, these situations are made to seem like ordinary everyday occurrences—in his paintings, he create photorealistic renderings of independent young girls and curious, majestic bears walking about in gritty, graffiti-covered urban spaces.
According to Peterson, “these paintings are about trauma, fear and loneliness and the strength that it takes to survive and thrive. They each contain the contrast of the untainted, young and innocent against a backdrop of a worn, ragged, and defiled world”.
Head over to his website to view more of his intriguing paintings—while they definitely deal with themes of “isolation, loneliness and longing”, there is also an unmistakeable trace of “optimistic hope” in them.
[via Fubiz, images via Kevin Peterson]