I first came across Okra Smugglers in an online post, purportedly claiming that the painting was of Renaissance origin and demonstrated the lewdness of that era. I am not an art expert but even my amateur eye could tell that this work was not from the Renaissance (though I can see where one might be deceived by its looking not unlike a Bruegel) and was clearly a recent work. In fact, it is a painting by the contemporary Polish/American artist Henryk Fantazos, a fitting name for a producer of such fantastical works.

In fact, it is the curious intersection of the surreal with the real that leaps out of Fantazos's paintings, a dreamworld rooted in the unnervingly familiar. It has been described as an allegorical realism. Okra Smugglers is one of the oddest of such works - firstly, the idea that okra need to be smuggled is strange, secondly, the means of smuggling - in the leggings of the gentleman in the accordion outfit, and most alarmingly, the pants of the young woman gazing out at us - is positively bizarre. Methinks that they will be stopped at the first customs outpost, the contraband spilling from their bodies.

Oh, and another giveaway - the man on the left is wearing a sun-dial wristwatch, locating him firmly in the modern era. "We are running out of time," he seems to be saying as he taps the watch cover. Yet his fellow still has a way to go with bucket of okra.

In an interview, Fantazos said that he wants to paint the images that come to him without censorship, unmediated by other considerations. He also said that "the grotesque is the proper language for depicting our times." As such he is an interesting painter and I encourage you to look for his other works.