Featured image: World Turned Upside Down, John Calabrese, 2013, graphite pencil on paper, 16 x 20 in. / 40.64 x 50.8 cm.
John Calabrese’s graphite drawings are portals, psychological and planetary.
John Calabrese draws surreal, cosmic dreamscapes in graphite, merging human emotion, planetary science, and subconscious exploration into visionary black-and-white works.
Known for his hauntingly surreal compositions that interlace feminine figures, celestial terrain, and dreamlike distortions, Calabrese works exclusively in pencil to carve poetic tension into the page. In Too Much To Dream, When Worlds Collide, and One Step Beyond – Arsia Mons, Mars, the artist fuses emotion with astronomy, longing with geology, and memory with myth. Each piece operates like a quiet hallucination, drawn from somewhere between waking life and planetary wanderlust.
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Too Much To Dream, John Calabrese, 2015, graphite pencil on paper, 20 x 16 in. / 50.8 x 40.64 cm.
In Too Much To Dream, a tattooed woman floats beneath the water's surface, her expression introspective, her limbs at ease. Above her, the water churns, threatening disturbance. The title suggests a moment of emotional or subconscious overflow, too many dreams to process. Light fractures around her like psychic static, reflecting not only the environment but a kind of inner illumination. Calabrese’s mastery of graphite transforms water into liquid electricity and makes the woman appear as both real and spectral, a soul suspended between realms.
When Worlds Collide, John Calabrese, 2013, graphite on paper, 20 x 16 in. / 50.8 x 40.64 cm.
When Worlds Collide is a masterpiece of duality and chaos. A woman’s serene face emerges from a roiling mass of cosmic debris. Above her, planetary textures ripple like dream maps; below, the dark void of space looms. The central collision appears metaphysical, a clash of emotional worlds rather than astronomical ones. Calabrese uses contrast with surgical precision, balancing delicacy in the facial features with eruptive marks across the galactic field. This drawing is a visual poem about transformation, heartbreak, and the uncanny beauty of dissonance.
One Step Beyond - Arsia Mons, Mars, John Calabrese, 2016, graphite pencil on paper, 16 x 20 in. / 40.64 x 50.8 cm.
In One Step Beyond, a woman stands at the edge of Arsia Mons, one of Mars’ largest volcanoes. She looks down, her printed dress echoing the swirling geology before her. The lunar-like surface and meticulous rendering of Martian texture suggest scientific precision, yet the emotional tone is unmistakable: awe, hesitation, curiosity. Calabrese turns a cold, distant crater into a metaphor for the unknown, be it death, grief, or self-discovery. This is not just a planetary portrait, it is an invitation to stand at the brink of our own inner Mars.
Across this series, Calabrese collapses time, scale, and meaning. Women become celestial bodies. Craters become symbols of loss or insight. Water, sky, and soil swirl together until dream, planet, and psyche are indistinguishable. Through graphite alone, he maps terrains both physical and emotional, creating a body of work that lingers like a lucid dream. His art reminds us that to understand the universe, we must also understand ourselves.
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Eyes Have Been Opened, John Calabrese, 2020, graphite pencil on paper, 20 x 16 in. / 50.8 x 40.64 cm.
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