Featured image: Pump, Troy Bunch, 2025, oil on canvas, 30 x 24 in. / 76.2 x 60.96 cm.
Troy Bunch’s oil paintings inhabit the liminal space between myth, psychology, and dreamscape.
Troy Bunch blends myth, surrealism, and realism in symbolic portraits, exploring beauty, transcendence, and humanity’s place in the cosmos.
With meticulous realism layered over surrealist visions, his works place figures in uncanny settings where nature, divinity, and selfhood merge. Each canvas offers a symbolic stage where the boundaries between inner life and outer world blur, demanding viewers confront mystery and beauty in equal measure.
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Air and Water, Troy Bunch, 2025, oil on linen, 30 x 24 in. / 76.2 x 60.96 cm.
In Air and Water, a woman is half-submerged in a vast expanse while koi fish float impossibly above the surface. The scene disrupts the laws of physics, rendering her both within and beyond the water at once. Wrapped loosely in a white drape, she cradles a koi as though it were a child, suggesting themes of fertility, rebirth, and interconnection with nature. Bunch balances stillness and motion, using soft flesh tones against deep aquatic blues to reinforce the painting’s otherworldly calm.
Third Eye, Troy Bunch, 2022, oil on linen, 30 x 24 in. / 76.2 x 60.96 cm.
Third Eye presents a striking portrait of a woman crowned with an ornate, golden headdress crowned by an unblinking eye. The image is direct and confrontational, her gaze mirrored by the watchful symbol above her brow. The composition speaks to illumination, expanded perception, and the power of inner vision. Rich reds, turquoise accents, and gilded horns radiate from the figure like solar flares, positioning her as both goddess and oracle. Here, Bunch explores the tension between beauty and transcendence, questioning where earthly allure ends and divine knowledge begins.
Tiny Blue Dot, Troy Bunch, 2023, oil on linen, 30 x 24 in. / 76.2 x 60.96 cm.
In Tiny Blue Dot, a nude figure adorned with an elaborate horned crown emerges in a forest clearing, her pose confident yet untamed. The jeweled adornments gleam against muted woodland tones, situating her as both guardian and inhabitant of the natural world. The title invokes Carl Sagan’s cosmic reflection, reframing humanity’s scale in the universe through mythic imagery. The painting’s interplay between primal sensuality and cosmic symbolism points to a central truth in Bunch’s work: humanity exists simultaneously as creature of earth and dreamer of stars.
Across these works, Troy Bunch weaves mythological archetypes with dreamlike distortions, creating portals where symbolism, surrealism, and realism entwine. His figures embody dualities, human and divine, natural and cosmic, sensual and transcendent. The series ultimately suggests that selfhood is not fixed but fluid, shifting between inner realms and universal myths.
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Golden Eyes, Troy Bunch, 2024, oil on linen, 30 x 24 in. / 76.2 x 60.96 cm.
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