Esao Andrews’ work fits loosely into a branch of contemporary fantastic art called “pop surrealism”.

His work often involves portrait-like images of young women in conjunction with odd elements, such as objects that are combinations of plant and animal forms, apparently intended to be a bit disconcerting.

Some of his paintings are more straightforward, almost like regular portraits (left, bottom), some look a bit like deranged children’s book illustration and some are simply odd. I wouldn’t say that the images I’ve chosen here are necessarily representative of his work, I just happen to like them in particular.

His web site has a delightfully entertaining Flash interface, one of the most amusing I’ve seen, in which a young woman sits demurely in a room with a few furnishings, and her face follows your cursor as you mouse over objects that pop up or change to reveal the sites sections. The interface is done with style and cheeky wit (she looks right at you and flashes her dress up when you choose “Paintings”) and is full of nicely imaginative details.

Unfortunately, once past the amusing nature of the interface, it’s actually not easy to navigate, the galleries consist of colored dots with no indication of previews and the images open in pop-up windows. (Who ever told artists that pop-up windows are a good way to display art work?)

If you like quirky, imaginative and oddball images, though, Esao’s work is worth the trouble to look through the galleries.

There are sections of paintings, done in oil on board, drawings, illustrations and designs for skateboard decks. There is also an archive to a previous site version. His “News” section mentions an upcoming site redesign (which promises “no pop-up windows”), but I hope he archives this one.

There isn’t much background or biographical info on the site, but there is a good interview with him on Pixelsurgeon.