Major Metropolises Reimagined as Surreal Cities That Are Topsy Turvy and Turned Sideways

Surreal Architecture Paintings

Sakyo, Japan

Artist Cinta Vidal turns buildings on their sides in a series of surreal architecture paintings. In her reimagined worlds, major metropolises are topsy-turvy as residences and skyscrapers are arranged in compositions akin to M.C. Escher paintings. It’s not just the structures that are sideways and upside down, but the people, too. Yet they carry on with life as normal, acting as if nothing is strange about it.

Gravity is something we don’t have to think about—that’s just how the world is. Vidal’s willingness to forgo this “sacred law” is what makes her work so beguiling. Beyond the aesthetic qualities, however, her inverted architecture is meant to symbolize human nature and what it means to live among other people. “I set elements in different orientations in order to talk about the different points of view we all have in our environments,” she tells My Modern Met. “We will never be able to see all points of view at the same time. They all exist, but we must choose one, and I think this happens constantly in life.”

Scroll down to see works from Vidal’s most recent exhibition, Urban, which recently concluded at the Beinart Gallery in Melbourne, Australia.

Artist Cinta Vidal creates surreal architecture paintings of inverted buildings.

Surreal Paintings by Cinta Vidal

Kobe, Japan

Surreal Paintings by Cinta Vidal

Hong Kong

Surreal Paintings by Cinta Vidal

Los Angeles, California

Based on cities around the world, the images symbolize what it's like to live among other people.

Surreal Paintings by Cinta Vidal

Kyoto, Japan

Surreal Paintings by Cinta Vidal

New York City, New York

Surreal Paintings by Cinta Vidal

New York City

Surreal Architecture Paintings

Stuttgart, Germany

Surreal Architecture Paintings

Osaka, Japan

“We will never be able to see all points of view at the same time,” she tells My Modern Met. “They all exist, but we must choose one, and I think this happens constantly in life.”

Surreal Architecture Paintings

Santa Monica, California

Surreal Architecture Paintings

Lantau, Hong Kong

Cinta Vidal: Website | Instagram | Facebook

My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by Cinta Vidal. 

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Interview: Inside the Surreal Creative Mind of Greg “Craola” Simkins

Surreal Optical Illusion Paintings Fuse Two Magical Scenes into One

Sara Barnes

Sara Barnes is a Staff Editor at My Modern Met, Manager of My Modern Met Store, and co-host of the My Modern Met Top Artist Podcast. As an illustrator and writer living in Seattle, she chronicles illustration, embroidery, and beyond through her blog Brown Paper Bag and Instagram @brwnpaperbag. She wrote a book about embroidery artist Sarah K. Benning titled 'Embroidered Life' that was published by Chronicle Books in 2019. Sara is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art. She earned her BFA in Illustration in 2008 and MFA in Illustration Practice in 2013.
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