Details:
① Artwork:
Meld with Me
This artwork, made with pen on paper, is an imagined landscape that defies the very parameters of reality. Having grown up in the Mormon Church, the artist often constructs fantastical environments with a superior force in mind.
In this image, an Acadian landscape is anthropomorphized—subtly (with plants faintly resembling tongues and hands) and overtly (as a stream grows a human face). In this land, fauna grows both biomorphically and architecturally while swirling cosmic forms teem with energy waves.
Smith’s elaborate visual style draws from the study of master printmakers, Persian Miniature painting, Dungeons & Dragons manuals, Where’s Waldo, and indie comics. Having grown up as a Mormon in the conservative state of Utah, Smith ultimately creates his wondrously imagined worlds as a way to escape.
Specs:
③ Artist:
Casey Jex Smith (b.1976) creates intricate and fantastical landscape drawings with pen, graphite, and colored pencil. He constructs his environments with a superior force in mind, one that manipulates the human figure via sensual pleasures and patterns to create meaning. Smith’s elaborate visual style draws from the study of master printmakers, Persian Miniature painting, Dungeons & Dragons manuals, Where’s Waldo, and indie comics, borrowing compositional structures from role-play games, Architectural Digest spreads, pleasure gardens, and Mormon temple rituals. Having grown up as a Mormon in the conservative state of Utah, Smith ultimately creates his wondrously imagined worlds as a way to escape.
