Are These Pixelated Landscapes The Modern Incarnation Of Monet Or Cezanne?

Koray Kantarcioğlu of Istanbul may signify what the modern incarnation of "a landscape painter" looks like. Rather than implementing a swath of oil paints and brushes a la Monet or Cezanne, Kantarcioğlu uses MS Paint to make hyper-detailed landscapes out of pixelated "paint."

The Turkish artist creates mountains, ocean waves, and other natural environments--but often explodes his subjects in an animated burst of digital glory. Some works look like volcanic eruptions embedded within other organic bodies like trees and rocky hillsides. The artwork is not quite impressionistic (there's no loose brushwork here), but these Bitmaps and ClearType landscapes do fit somewhere within the post-impressionism realm, as they focus on distorted geometric forms, exaggerated interpretations of natural settings, and arbitrary use of color.

Kantorcioğlu has been included in a variety of group shows over the past decade, and recently had a solo exhibition simply called Landscapes, at the Nesrin Esirtgen Collection gallery in Istanbul last year. The artist has also explored sound art, and exhibited his work in spaces such as the Pori Art Museum, King Kong Gallery in the Netherlands, and the Living Art Museum in Reykjavik.

Take a look at his work below, and then consider if his digital pixelation is actually a post-impressionistic variation of the European icons we still idolize at the Met.

Images courtesy of Koray Kantorcioğlu 

@zachsokol