Chris Leavens is a digital media artist born and raised in Pennsylvania. He got his BA in film and video at Penn State University, went out to LA to work in the film industry, but wound up taking an extended break to work as an illustrator, graphic designer, and web designer. He works primarily in Adobe Illustrator to create his outdoor-inspired vector illustrations, which have appeared in art galleries, computer games, books, magazines, TV shows, and feature films. His illustrations create “story-rich artwork [in] surreal landscapes filled with bizarre monsters and fantastical creatures.
When looking at Leavens’ vector artworks, the first thing you take away is just how imaginative the artist is. While some pictures seem to have one underlying story, others have a million things going on at once. It’s no wonder that one of his exhibitions was entitled “Fables and Fairy Tales”. His works also include both fun and whimsical and darker themes. These darker themes include aspects such as one creature consisting of several smaller, creeper critters, or a dark face, frowning and looming overhead. I think Leaven uses this link between lighter subjects and darker aspects mixed throughout to emphasize that there is no pure good or pure evil in the world. Everything is a combination of dark and light. Furthermore, if these artworks are depicting dreams, which in many ways they seem to be, it combines the idea of a pleasant dream with nightmare – both of which everyone has.
The concept behind Chris Leavens’ works is fantastic – mostly because it is actually fantastical. The aesthetic quality is also great because he utilizes shading, gradients, and texture, while adding plenty of tiny detail to every creature as well as all the elements of his landscapes. Correspondingly, he does not leave big blank spaces in the background of his work, but fills up the artboard from edge to edge. Nevertheless, I think what makes Leavens’ work so powerful is the stories they evoke. Because of this I think he could make his work even stronger by creating sets or sequences. He already seems to use a few characters repeatedly in his illustrations, so it would not be too farfetched to unite some of his works in a larger, bigger picture/story that can still be complicated and abstract enough for the viewer to take away their own meaning from. This is about the only thing I can suggest Leavens changes because his work is already so captivating as is.
Artwork and info taken from: http://www.chrisleavens.com/
Also used for info: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/03/04/100-beautiful-illustrator-artworks-by-artists-around-the-world/
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