Fantastical Art Peppers Reality With Robots And Rusting Tech

By David Wharton | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

passerines_1920_badgeIt seems to happen every few weeks on this job, but I’ve fallen in love with a newly discovered artist yet again. It’s not terribly surprising, I guess. I grew up having my art transported to far-off worlds by artists like Robert McCall, Drew Struzan, and Chris Foss, so I’m always looking for someone else whose talents can capture my imagination in the same way. Today that person is artist Simon Stalenhag, whose work mixes gorgeous landscapes with fantastic technology straight off a sci-fi book cover, snapshots of day-to-day life with machines that seem to have fallen backwards through time.

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What I love most is Stalenhag’s ability to suggest a story with small details. Like the picture below, where your attention is initially captured by the rampaging war machine and the police blockade, but then you notice the tiny figure in the background, holding what looks like a remote control…

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Sometimes the technological elements of his work is mixed with real life as if they are so commonplace as to be wholly unremarkable. I love these next two, which conjure science fiction skies behind very human, very familiar scenes.

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Stalenhag’s stuff is beautiful and evocative across the board, but I have to admit that I particularly adore his works that portray a time when the great machines have fallen into disuse or ruin, where the landscape is strewn with decaying wonders, just waiting to be explored by the curious and the young.

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Also, sometimes there are dinosaurs. I don’t know why, but I’m okay with that.

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You can see more of Stalenhag’s work on his website.

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