James Lipnickas, a phenomenal graphite artist, has lately been creating these haunting drawings of high-rise towers—populated with cryptic humans who appear to periodically wrestle with aliens.
Some of my favorites are below, reprinted with his permission. Check out his Instagram, too. It has more from this series, and also work going back further, including eerie vistas of tiny humans pondering massive geometric structures.
Lipnickas is working in what I would identify as a fantastic Venn overlap of Escher, OMNI magazine covers, and Edward Gorey. The results are spellbinding. He sells original graphite works on his web site, and I'm thinking of getting one now.
He did an interview with Colossal about these tower-drawings …
New Haven, Connecticut-based artist James Lipnickas conjures towering sci-fi structures filled with futuristic labs, clashes with aliens, and massive laser beams shooting from rooftops. Working in graphite, Lipnickas uses heavy shading to shroud his architectural renderings in mystery and unfamiliarity as tentacled creatures crack through the walls and humans become science experiments. "This series really grew out of my interest in advanced technologies integrating with humans and how it shapes us moving forward," he says.
Amidst the machines and eerie contraptions, the artist interrupts each building with a level containing a garden bed or an illuminated tree grove. "The future holds many unknowns (technology and lifeforms). We can't forget the natural world while we move further from it," he says.
