In the spirit of arts month and with Halloween just around the corner, we’ve decided to highlight a handful of artists who delight in painting, drawing, sculpting and animating the wonderfully grotesque and the marvelously macabre. And what better expert of the genre to consult than the owner of The Dark Art Emporium, Jeremy Schott?

The following five artists are not afraid to dip into the darker side of life to create incredibly intricate, vibrant and sometimes humorously spooky works of art.

Jeremy Cross

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo2JYrFgOTY/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Cross is more than just a painter, he’s a pyrographer, fabricator, graphic designer, musician and performer; pursuing a diverse range of passions keeps him sane, he says. He’s also a guest curator at the emporium and spent nearly five years as director at the now closed Night Gallery Fine Art in Santa Ana.

When his son was born in 2013, Cross decided to focus solely on his art, giving up what he called the rat race of maintaining a day job and trying to create and show in galleries at the same time. Since then, “it’s felt like I’ve stepped onto an escalator. And the ride has been exhilarating,” Cross stated on his Patreon.

Learn more about Cross’ work on Instagram @jeremycrossart.

Kristina Drake

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While Drake was born in Minneapolis, she moved to Long Beach in 2014 where she currently lives and works. She’s a longtime sculptor, and uses the natural world around her to explore themes like death and change, creating vibrantly colored objects and paintings including animal skulls, insects, geological features, fantastical creatures and more. Drake has shown in galleries across the country and even works with aquariums and museums in an effort to raise awareness of ongoing conservation efforts.

It’s also worth mentioning that Drake has some work on display in the Dark Art Emporium’s current exhibit, The Weird Wicked World of Wonderous Wonders, which opened Saturday.

Learn more about Drake on Instagram @kristinadrakeart.

Jinx

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bodr7jUH6KY/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Raised in the Midwest by a combination of horror movies and Bob Ross tutorials, Jinx later took an interest in medical shows—and you can see these influences in the work she does today. With a knack for the precision required in working with small items, and with an 11-year body piercing career at Long Beach-based Somatic Body Piercing, Jinx has an affinity for creating miniature sculptures, paintings and taxidermy. Her recent works focus on the beauty of skulls, from paintings on insect wings to scenes encased in tiny glass domes.

Learn more about Jinx on Instagram @jinxedart and through her website here.

Christian Guerrero

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo3V40LBuny/?taken-by=christianguerrero13

Influenced by Picasso, Dali, H.R. Giger and M.C. Escher, Guerrero’s creatures crawl and cower as charming creepy drawings and animations. Now based in Long Beach, Guerrero graduated from the Art Institute in San Diego and has experience collaborating with Tijuana-based Boxel Studio as a character animator, and has worked as a camera director, video editor and more throughout his creative experience; he also co-founded JAMS, a group of local artists and musicians who work together.

See more of Guerrero’s work on Instagram @christianguerrero13.

Larry Talavera

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bmi-bSaHQUw/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

A resident of Long Beach’s East Village Arts District for the last 20 years, Talavera is a “mostly self-taught” artist, but also studied painting and illustration at Art Center College of Design. Talavera’s portraits—oil paintings and pen and ink drawings—“evoke a sense of a darker reality and human emotion.” He has shown in a variety of group shows in Long Beach, from pop-up galleries to local bars, as well as the Dark Art Emporium.

See more of Talavera’s work on Instagram @larrytalaveraart.