Category: Illustration

A Conduit for Sadness: Ethereal Paintings by Owen Gent

“I’ve always found something beautiful in melancholy,” illustrator Owen Gent explains. Films, music, and artwork that has affected him the most has had this quality, and it’s a sentiment that he produces in his own illustrations. The ethereal images depict characters confronting something within themselves, for better or for worse. Some appear enlightened, as if […]

Dystopian Illustrations with an M.C. Escher Twist by Rune Fisker

Danish illustrator Rune Fisker draws chaotic scenes that feel like a single moment out of a larger story. The figures often occupy these compelling-yet-confusing spaces with the distinct feeling that they’re being watched. Part dystopian novel with an M.C. Esher-like approach to composition, we can’t help but wonder what Fisker is trying to say about […]

Everyday Life Expressed as Surreal Paintings by Alice Wellinger

Austrian-based artist and illustrator Alice Wellinger finds inspiration in the “troubles of daily life and childhood memories.” To depict these confusing, conflicting, or just plain annoying thoughts and situations, she illustrates them as surreal paintings. The double-exposure effect is common in her work—a portrait of a person, for instance, is fused with faraway landscapes or fractured […]

Experimental Remixes by Anxo Vizcaino Create Alternate Worlds

Welcome to the pristine dream-visions of Anxo Vizcaino, an artist based in Lugo, Spain. After working as a graphic designer and illustrator for many years, he switched gears to embark on a more artistic journey. His recent personal creations involve experimental remixes that allow him to focus his “concerns and passions related to reality, outer […]

Spectral Beauty: Portraiture by Leslie Ann O’Dell

Leslie Ann O’Dell is a self-taught contemporary artist from Denver, Colorado, who uses photography and digital manipulation to produce haunting portraits. Inspired by the “subconscious, empathy for the wrong, [and] people who dream,” her imagery is both delicate and disturbing. Sensual bodies explode into floral arrangements resembling viscera and dripping blood, summoning shadowy mythologies of […]

Discovering the Dystopia in Our Selves by Andrew Fairclough

In spring of 2017, Andrew Fairclough, aka Kindred Studio, had his first solo exhibition titled “Total Control” in Sydney, Australia. It featured portraits of men and women whose faces are multiplied, their bodies hollowed out, and heads fused with architecture. “The works,” he writes, “explore themes of introspection, confusion, duality and impulse control viewed through […]

Art and Science Merge in NastPlas’ Abstract Digital Images

NastPlas is a Madrid-based creative duo, started in 2006 by illustrator Fran R. Learte (aka, “drFranken”) and creative director Natalia Molinos. Together, they change the way we look at art by bringing 2D forms into experimental digital spaces. For example, their series “QUO” offers a new interpretation of oil paintings by transforming the brushstrokes into […]

Sensual 3D Line Art by Nester Formentera

Nester Formentera is a Dublin-based artist creating mesmerizing, cross-contour line art, primarily of the female body. Two years ago, after developing an impressive portfolio drawing realistic portraits, Formentera began experimenting with line work to create 3D effects on paper. The process begins with a sketch, which he creates with the help of reference photos, followed […]

Stories of Death and Creation in Illustrations by Lauren Marx

Lauren Marx is an artist based in St. Louis, Missouri, who tells stories about birth, death, nature, and the suffering caused by mental illness. Her subjects are animals (her longstanding passion), which she draws with a morbid and mythical flair; peruse her gallery and you will see three-headed calves, geese entwined by their entrails, and […]

Nature Illustrations that Venture “Into the Woods” and Beyond

In Stephen Sondheim’s critically-acclaimed musical Into the Woods, characters from several iconic fairy tales are intertwined as they each venture into the one place they’re all unsure of—the dark woods. This is the place where Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack (from “Jack and the Beanstalk”) and others have to leave their comfort zones and […]