Well here it is the original Cafe Surreal T-shirt designed in 1997. The artwork for the shirt was part of a series of paintings called “Cafe Surreal”. This particular design was never a painting. It was designed specifically for the shirt. A simple one color hit on a charcoal wash t-shirt. Very comfy.

A very limited printing was done through a screen shop in Tempe Arizona.

As you can see, we did a shot on each sleeve with the logo of the art studio called One Brush Studio. One Brush Studio was the dba for all the artwork and illustration of Karl Knelson.

The Cafe Surreal series was painted during the late 90s as a tribute to both the surrealistic work of Salvidor Dali and the explosive popularity of coffee houses. Thus Cafe Surreal was born. The intention for the series was to show at local coffee houses until an art gallery would give it consideration. Well, some of the artwork from One Brush Studios did make it to some coffee houses. One in San Diego and two in Phoenix.

It is our hope that Cafe Surreal comes back in the form of a t-shirt. We like to call them walking galleries where a small group of friends from the studio invade a coffee house wearing the pieces on several shirts.