Danny van Ryswyk (NSFW) is an Amsterdam-based digital painter, who creates dark and surreal art using 3D software. Drawing upon the photography of the 19th century as a stylistic inspiration, Ryswyk’s paintings are a fusion of the absurd, the melancholic, and Victorian portraiture. Peering into the looking glass that are his works opens up a Lovecraftian dimension to us, or in his own words, “the idea of a reality that exists outside the range of science’s ability to explain or measure.”

Ryswyk creates his works inside a digital environment, in a painstaking process which can take weeks, if not months to finish.

He starts building each piece using complex 3D-modeling software for use in movies, games and the animation industry. In this stage all subjects are meticulously sculpted from the ground up as if they where made of clay. These sculptures will then be imported in rendering software where he creates organic textures like flesh and fabrics which he applies to his models, bringing them to life. Decors are created, environmental lighting and elaborate illusions are set-up, just as it would be done in a theatre to create the dark dreamy atmosphere Danny van Ryswyk is aiming for. The staged scene will then be rendered to a 2D image and finally painted and further refined until the work is finished.

Ryswyk has an upcoming group exhibition on the 20th and 21st of April, 2013, at the Hoekkunst gallery in the Netherlands. Visit his site to check out more of his digital art (NSFW).

Hit the jump to see more images.

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