Dara Theodora | Contemporary Surrealist Artist

Contemporary Surrealist Paintings

Drawing on dreams, mythology, psychology, and the idea of “perception as deception”, these often-paradoxical paintings examine, what else, the human experience and imagination. Anxiety, longing, mystery, anger, and, somehow, hope.

You can rent my work for personal use or filming through Curina or purchase available pieces in the shop.

Click on each painting to learn more about its story, symbolism, availability, and influences. (And be subject to some poetry.)

Surrealist tempera painting primarily in purple, yellow ochre, and black. A woman-faced bat with floating hair separates two scenes. On the right is a night scene with a lit up refinery under a full moon. Cards sit on a table. On the left a dramatic cloudy day. Two figures sit around a table playing cards. A man sits in a red chair with his face cupped in his hand. A figure in a red mask and white ruff looks on. Another woman-faced bat is in the midground.
Crude Refinery. Tempera on board. 2026.
Surrealist tempera painting with a woman with fiery curly red hair holding her face in the foreground. In her hair is a dark figure. Her arm looks to be bandaged with bells. In the midground a woman with three feet looks cautious by a white canine. She wears red and a cap. Three coral snakes sneak up on her. A storm brews. A small dark house and figure are in the far background.
Grief Mother. Tempera on canvas. 2026.
An expressionist figure in yellow with three legs screams. A surrealist background on purple and yellow has a tiger and jackal and hides many mysterious figures.
Tiger & Jackal. Oil on canvas. 2024.
Surreal painting of a woman with heterochromia and very blonde hair in a white headdress, resting her chin on her hand, while holding a paintbrush. There's a celestial blue background, gold patterns representing fan vaulting, and three stained glass windows that make up a white horse. A checkerboard floor and pyramids make up the midground. In the foreground a painted hole representing the circles of hell show burning buildings and figures groping at each other. An ink well spills into the circles of hell.
Illumination. Tempera on board. 2026.
Mystical tempera painting of a woman in white flying across the sky towards a portal. On the ground pilgrimages carry candles towards a ziggurat.
Leaving Babylon. Tempera on canvas. 2025.
An owl woman with dark hair and sphere-like gold earrings opens up a vitrine of multi-colored books in her chest. They stand in dark room, walking on a rug turned ocean. Two windows show a distant landscape. A cheetah rests on the rug. Rotten fruit is at their feet.
A Pandora’s Box. Tempera on board. 2026.
Mostly yellow piece with a horse in the background, a jester, and a nude monarch pointing at the jester.
Go Tell the Bees. Oil on canvas. 2023.
Narrative oil and tempera political painting containing two puritanical figures in the foreground. Women running and a girl with an apple in the midground. A woman being burned at the stake in the background. Hints of a mob coming over the hill.
Perennial Witcchunt. Tempera and oil on canvas. 2024.
Bright experimental still life plpaying with parallax, or double-vision. A figure holding a mug stands before a bright midcentury interior
Interior Parallax. Tempera on canvas. 2025.
Surrealist tempera painting of a mostly greyscale with an angel in a valley. Clouds form a woman. Two other figures appear, one seemingly to hold up a mountain.
The Benefactor, The Abdicator. Tempera on board. 2025.
Figurative magical realist tempera painting of woman in black rests on a boulder by a tuxedo cat in a yellow field blowing in the wind. The horizon is rounded. The blue sky is blueprints of WWI planes. A bright moon shines down on the scene. A fire burns in the background.
The Debacle. Tempera on canvas. 2025.
Bright yellow expressionist portrait of a couple and their dog with an abstract background.
E+J. Mixed media on canvas. 2026.
A contemporary tempera surrealist piece of figure with black hair and a vertically striped shirt is in front of a yellow green and black geometric background. They have a mask, which is unfolding, revealing an earth interior where a face should be. A polyphemus moth perches on the white Noh mask, slightly revealing one dark eye. A hand sprouts in the background, holding a lime which is peeling up into abstraction.
Peel. Tempera on linen. 2026.
Pixelated background of pink and blue with a figure in leaves in the foreground reaching out.
Dissociative Downpour. Tempera on canvas. 2025.
A green-shaded magical realist painting. There's a purple city in the background, and a falling-apart bridge, reminiscent of Galloping Gertie in the midground. In the foreground, three boats sit; the boat closest to the viewer has a man in a striped shirt, boating hat, and he rows slowly along. The other two boats carry women. Above the green-tinted scene, lit by a white sun, a bomb falls near the upper border.
Pleasure Boating. Tempera and oil on canvas. 2025.
Surrealist painting of a yellow figure falling through space and paredoila.
Stole the Stars. Oil on canvas. 2024.
Surrealist blue painting of a large white cat sleeping in a swooping dreamlike landscape. A Texas farmhouse is lit in the distance.
Midnight Radio. Oil on canvas. 2023.
Three haystack men figures dances towards the viewer. A man sweeps his stoop to the right. A cat catches a mouse in the foreground.
The Rattle and the Dim of the Haystack Men. Oil on canvas. 2024.