Margo Selski is known for creating lush Surrealist paintings that quote Flemish painting and 19th century portraiture.

 

Born in Minnesota, Selski was raised in Kentucky. One moment she jokingly refers to herself as a hillbilly, the next she says she was inspired by Shakespeare's "The Tempest" and Prospero's book of mirrors.

 

She only started Paint by number kits in college. A stay-at-home mom, Selski cares for her three young children in a studio loft filled with toys, pets and a climbing wall. While the kids play, she hangs laundry on a pulley system she created. Then she takes out her brushes and canvass, and gets busy painting finely detailed mythological pictures.

 

Selski’s work deconstructs the continuing appeal of realistic painting in a contemporary art landscape where such work is often considered irrelevant. “Realistic painting offers the artist the ultimate control because everything in the world depicted is handmade by the artist,” states Selski. “My paintings are not so much portraits of figures, but portraits of the human desire for control that is often futile but deeply irresistible.”

 

Margo Selski's Paint by number kits -- with ball gowns made of eyes, braids of hair with agency of their own and the pointiest feet you've ever seen -- look like the stuff of fairy tales.

 

This is not totally false. Selksi was inspired by "The Tempest" and "Prospero's Book of Mirrors." Yet these fanciful and mysterious other worlds are not the product of pure imagination; Selski paints true stories of family secrets from her Kentucky youth. We seriously wonder what her family reunions are like.

 

"The twins are like the animus and the anima, or the dark side and the light side. And the skirt with all the animals and the snakes on it. I just... I'm almost agitated!" Grubbs laughs.

She's looking at Margo Selski's paintings. They depict sirens, angels, babies and sea creatures, as well as a pair of twins named Flora and Fauna. Flora is surrounded by flowers, while Fauna has paws instead of hands and feet.

 

The paintings evoke the style of the Flemish renaissance but are also suffused with magical realism. They are purposely aged to create fine cracks on the surface.

 

Selski says she wants to lure people to the paintings with playful images and a balanced composition. Then as they continue to stare, they begin to comprehend and explore the uneasy nature of this world. Selski is the mother of three children, two of whom were colicky babies.

 

"After having children, I wanted to deal with finding some kind of stability in a threatening world," says Selski. "Having children accentuated that, and having these small screaming sirens accentuated that need for balance."