Brecht Van­der­brouke often infuses his paint­ings with a slice of life. A slice of life, how­ever, that has gone awry, some­times trag­i­cally so.

It’s not always for the worse, but often what Brecht’s sub­jects are endur­ing is dis­com­fort– whether it be phys­i­cal or emo­tion. Some of Brecht’s paint­ings deal with gen­eral awk­ward­ness, like not say­ing the right thing (espe­cially on the inter­net! Oh the human­ity). Other times, he takes it over the top and paints for us grue­some scenes with mutants, spir­its, and faulty machin­ery. Paired with his color choices and media, Brecht’s work is a bit dark, and com­ments on the idea of nos­tal­gia and social norms, ref­er­enc­ing to us things familiar.

All images via his Flickr.