Artist Exploration: Larry Carlson

I have always enjoyed a little surrealism from time to time. As I explored Flash animations on the web I came across the artist, Larry Carlson.
In his bio it states that he is a "A pioneer in experimental multimedia web-art, he first started exhibiting his artwork online in 1997. In 2000 Carlson published the legendary art web sites Virtual OM and LarryCarlson.com which featured his original full screen psychotropic entertainment."

On his site he has a prolific collection of surreal Flash animations. Some are interactive and some are not. He uses his experience as a collage artist to create a mixed media feel using bitmap and vector images. The pieces have themes but do not follow classic storytelling principles. The user will find themselves hovering and clicking away to see what strange thing will happen next. He uses the nesting idea to full purpose. A movieclip of a bear can be seen bouncing along in a transparent orb. Barns and duck heads grow into tree shapes by reproducing themselves in different sizes and stacking away. 
A good example of rotoscoping can be found in "Amsterdam Doors."

He uses animated text and lots of buttons with hit areas to start animations within animations and will have the user chase objects around the screen with no hope of catching them.

I had a lot of fun checking these out. It is a good example of the creative possibilities Flash offers.