Ben Tolman’s Microscopic Surrealism

Wandering through Ben Tolman’s online gallery of pen and ink drawings can quickly turn into a search for what’s buried among the ornate camouflage. Like looking through a microscope onto an entire world of vivid organisms, you could zoom in forever and still find more details. Layer upon layer of stories fill the giant boards on which Tolman unfolds his imagination. His obsession for detail is as haunting as his subjects—reminiscent of Dante, yet ultimately compassionate and filled with life. His enormous, painstaking drawings seem to be borne on an artistic equivalent of hypergraphia. One of his latest works, The Theater, took more than a year to complete. Watch videos of work-in-progress on Tolman’s blog.