'Anito Kristo' by Ronald Ventura

I've never specifically asked myself what Jesus might look like as a bulul but I can't say I'm disappointed that Filipino artist Ronald Ventura made this mashup a reality. Anito Kristo, his most recent sculpture exhibition at Secret Fresh Gallery, reimagines Christ as the rice guardian of Northern Philippine tribes.

Traditionally, bulul are installed in barns to protect rice from pests, thieves and spoilage. They are also credited for an increase in harvest, or even magically increasing rice in storage. Now they have lost their ritual significance and have been relegated to souvenirs and decorations. I've come to expect the unexpected with mashups, but I'll admit—I didn't see this one coming.

Ronald is arguably the Philippines' most commercially successful visual artist. In 2011, he set a historic record at the Sotheby's Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Paintings auction in Hong Kong when his piece sold for nearly 47 million pesos.

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Weirdly Charming

If you’re a fan of art that makes you do a double-take, you need to check out Richard Brener . Based in the UK, Richard is an internationally collected artist who works primarily with ink, fineliners, and gouache. When you first see his pieces, they actually look pretty playful. Then you realize the entire canvas is packed with thousands of tiny, ghost-like shapes he calls "champs." They’re all squeezed together like commuters on a rush-hour train, and the level of detail is honestly mind-blowing. Richard spends hundreds of hours drawing these little guys over and over. It’s obsessive, very intentional, and a little bit wild. The cool part is that the longer you stare, the more the vibe shifts. Check out more photos below:

These grotesque porcelain sculptures might give you nightmares

Art doesn't just have to be colorful flowers, sunsets and unicorns – there is artistry in the grotesque as well. Jason Briggs , a Tennessee-based nightmare creator, makes surreal and fucked-up ceramic sculptures of the human body that exist on the boundary between horror and beauty.

Enigmatic Shapes and Psychedelic Patterns

To say that I love Sanagi 's work is an understatement. Looking at her art feels sort of therapeutic, and I find her drawings refreshingly intricate. They're trippy, psychedelic, and resemble something that you might see under a microscope. Not much is Googleable about Sanagi, but that's fine. There aren't many artists these days that still pull off the whole mysterious vibe, so I commend her for that. By the way... they're all hand-drawn with pen and ink.

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