Working in the field of concept art, Simon Stalenhag has conceived a whole world. Using his homeland of Sweden as a backdrop (and more recently, California), Stalenhag merges reality with fantasy, turning coniferous forests and snow-shrouded fields into the sites of alien encounters, apocalypse scavenging, and bloody cyborgian crimes. He spent a lot of time […]
Category: Post-Apocalyptic
10 Visually Stunning Cosmic Horror Films
In regards to the fear of the unknowable, there is no writer more influential today than H.P. Lovecraft. His stories saw humankind come into contact with beings older than time: sinister masses of tentacles whose very existence could drive someone completely mad. This was the birth of “cosmic horror”—that is, horror rooted in the idea […]
Sci-Fi and Fantasy Merge in Jakub Rebelka’s Colorful Worlds
Jakub Rebelka is a freelance illustrator and concept artist from Poland creating surreal worlds using traditional and digital mediums. Each image is like a comic book frame that has been expanded into an entire story. Rebelka finds inspiration in a variety of artists, including the French comic artist Moebius and the celebrated fantasy artist Peter […]
Pop Culture Dystopias: Digital Art by Filip Hodas
Filip Hodas is a 3D artist from Prague who uses computer software to render stunning, hypermodern landscapes (he was part of our “Amazingly Complex 3D Art” feature). In this new series, using Substance Painter and Illustrator/Photoshop, Hodas has been producing incredible pop culture dystopias; from Coca-Cola to Pac Man, big-name brands and recognizable cartoon characters […]
10 Imaginative Japanese Science Fiction Movies
Modern Japanese science fiction was birthed in nuclear fire at the close of World War II. It left a sobering impression of the dangers of technology that can be felt to this day, and it created a generation of directors who are keenly aware of how delicate their mortality is. Science fiction is a medium […]
Dystopias, Utopias, and Sexuality: Collages by Jordan Westre
Vancouver-based artist Jordan Westre makes eye-catching collages that anxiously depict future utopias, the apocalypse, and female sexuality. Mixing cutouts from vintage magazines with those from pornographic and editorial materials from any decade, Westre links the values of modern society to past ones, often pulling out cross-generational similarities in regards to war and the treatment of […]
The End is Nigh: 10 Post-Apocalyptic Movies in 2016–2017
From the Book of Revelation, to Y2K, to the supposed end of the Mayan calendar in 2012, it is fair to say that people have long been fascinated by the “end of the world.” This is part of our linear, fatalistic, religious, and/or increasingly nihilistic thinking: If everything had a beginning, then everything has to […]
Declining Horizons: Dark Urban Landscapes by Brian Mashburn
Brian Mashburn is an American artist who paints hazy, apocalyptic visions with oil on linen. Driven by what he deems “the soul of a hopeless romantic and the dark humour of a cynic,” he depicts unearthly, desolate worlds at the edge of collapse. In the background, towers, bridges, and cables lay half-obscured with fog, while […]
Priestess of the Dystopia: The Artwork of Ashley Joncas
Ashley Joncas is a Seattle-based artist and the founder of the multidisciplinary studio énigme. Combining minimalist aesthetics with “deep atmospheric qualities of an ominous color spectrum,” Joncas’ portfolio is a window into a bleak yet beautiful world. Rain-swept horizons and wandering cloaked figures ignite the imagination, producing a somber yet wistful mood. Joncas is an […]
The Selfie Apocalypse: Marvelous Mutants by Mothmeister
The artistic duo known as Mothmeister brings taxidermy to life in nightmarishly endearing photoshoots. Combining perished and preserved animals with models dressed up in masks and begrimed clothing, they create Frankenstein-esque humanoids who behold the camera with a shameless sense of pride. The barren, apocalyptic backgrounds provide the perfect settings for the artists to parody […]