Leah Brown is a Fort Lauderdale-based artist creating sculptures and installations based on her lucid dreams, which she has journaled about since childhood. “I create work about the borderland between what is considered real and what is not,” she writes in her bio. “These works begin as illustrations, but become artifacts of invocation, and I […]
Category: Magic
Atmospherically Charged Fantasy/Sci-Fi Concept Art by Axel Sauerwald
Axel Sauerwald is a freelance illustrator and concept artist based in Soest, Germany. His vast, atmospheric imagery is an impressive blend of fantasy and science fiction, with elements of magic and surrealism instilled seamlessly into historic-looking scenes. Two of his cited influences are Ilya Repin and Ivan Shishkin, Russian realist painters who captured landscapes and […]
Welcome to Faunwood: Enchanting Beasts by Miranda Zimmerman
Miranda Zimmerman, working under the title Faunwood, is a freelance artist currently based in the Pacific Northwest. With a bachelor’s degree in Evolutionary Biology, a graduate certificate in Science Illustration, and experience working on paleontological reconstruction in Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, it is clear she has a vested interest in the transformations and […]
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 […]
Light Through Shadow: Photography by Krist Mort
Austria-based Krist Mort is a photographer creating ethereal, black-and-white images of figures in forests and overgrown rooms. Using analog cameras and darkroom printing, her process is hands-on and deeply intuitive, producing a quality of grittiness and grain that reflect the weathered nature of being alive and pressed through time (“Heathen Harvest” wrote a fascinating piece […]
Modern Alchemy: Symbolic Paintings by El Gato Chimney
El Gato Chimney is a self-taught artist based in Milan. His colorful paintings are a form of modern alchemy, combining the aesthetics of medieval art (the 9th and 10th centuries) with steampunk culture, pagan symbolism, street art, and surrealism. In each piece, anthropomorphic animals and uncanny hybrids populate Bosch-like fields, gathering to perform arcane rites […]
Encountering the Unknown: Eerily Beautiful Visions by Severin Ettlin
Severin Ettlin is a photographer based in Lucerne, Switzerland, whose images carry an ethereal quality, blending the “mysteries of light, form, and color in a way that reflects [the artist’s] view of reality.” In his titled “Homolux,” an eerie, glowing figure is replicated in various environments, ranging from the deep woods to city streets. The […]
Esoteric Rites and Wonder in the World of Valin Mattheis
The world of Valin Mattheis is filled with otherworldly creatures, skeletal priests, and moments of transcendental awe. He draws inspiration from a variety of sources, including the symbolist artists, existentialism, Jungian psychology, and religions and mythologies the world over. The two-dimensional compositions and skeletal archetypes seem somewhat reminiscent of medieval art referencing the Black Death, […]
The Untamed: Woodsy, Witchy Photography by Amanda Bullick
Amanda Bullick is a Vancouver-based photographer, jewelry designer, and visual artist whose work centers around the “brutally beautiful”; bones, witches, magic, and the forest converge in a spectral aesthetic that contemplates the cycles of life, death, and rebirth. Her photographs seek to reclaim “the witch,” who is a female figure with dark implications in the […]
Dark Magic in Hogan McLaughlin’s Fashion and Illustrations
Hogan McLaughlin is an American dancer, fashion designer, and artist whose work is influenced by medieval imagery and the fantasy genre. For his spring 2016 collection, McLaughlin collaborated with the New England-based artist Bill Crisafi to create the series of images featured here. Entitled “Upon the Heath of Bedlam,” they are shot in Salem, Massachusetts. […]