The Arrival by Shaun Tan

Shaun Tan is a ridiculously talented Australian writer-illustrator. This 2006 book The Arrival is one of the most original books I've ever seen; telling its story entirely through pictures, it has the feel of an old, dreamlike, silent movie like Metropolis or The Cabinet of Dr Caligari.

The story concerns an man who leaves his own country in search of a better life in a strange new place. We see him struggle with language, customs, technology, plants and animals, which are utterly foreign to him. He meets other immigrants and hears their stories, and he works to be reunited with his wife and daughter. If that sounds dull, don't be put off! It's scary and sad and hopeful and whimsical and funny. And every page is a lush visual experience.

Shaun Tan has a great website, here.

The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan

If you liked The Arrival, you'll love this fantasy about a boy who takes care of a strange lost creature that is part organic and part mechanical. Visually it reminded me of the fantasy cities in the movies Brazil, Dark City, The City of Lost Children, and Jasper Morello, among others, and with elements of the paintings of Salvador Dali and Hieronomous Bosch; it has its own playful Shaun Tan style that isn't like anyone's else's.

Grant Hanna

I'd never heard of this witty New Zealand surrealist painter before I stumbled upon his I Dream of Fish Too, at Ferner Galleries. Other favourites of mine include 4 Cows and a Sheep, 3 White Coats and an Un-ion, and Another Day Closer to Death.

I really like the way his landscapes are both so recognisable and so altered.

Surreal architecture

We are all familiar with surreal painting. What would surreal architecture be like? Terunobu Fujimori has designed some examples.

Victoria Ginn

Figure in the New Zealand Landscape isn't like any other landscape photography book I've ever seen! Vicotoria Ginn uses New Zealand locations in ways you won't have seen before. This is one of my favourites. And this. They're all fascinating, though.

Ginn shows dancers in staged tableaux of various kinds: some enact historical events or myths, some are visual jokes, some are evocative and enigmatic; each shot is a carefully-composed moment of stillness. Over them all is an air of drama and strangeness: the landscapes look both familiar and alien.

Ginn describes herself as an "Ethnographic Art Documentary Photographer". Her work certainly defies the usual categories! Her biography and a history of her practice is here.

Jane Andrews

Sophisticated, witty, and extremely strange, Jane Andrews' paintings have a haunting, familiar feel, like something half-remembered from a dream.