Paul White’s Stunning Pencil Drawings

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Melbourne-based artist Paul White’s illustrations are currently being exhibited at his “Wasteland Wanderlust” show in the Metro Gallery in Victoria, Australia.

The implied silence in Paul White’s works is almost deafening. His illustrations of decrepit vehicles and machines are set in stark, desolate landscapes, and seem to have been painted with almost a religious reverence to detail and composition.  The artist has based his drawings on photographs he took during a research trip throughout California and Arizona, last year.

There is an eerie silence in Paul White’s gently rendered imagery, an unspoken melancholia, as though the entire world has been ceased via a pause button. But the sheer lack of movement of machines designed for transit is only a part of it.

Where are the people?

White’s world is one of stasis. The trailer home, the railway freight car, the dismembered planes are all captured with a stillness that borders on the uncanny. One is, to an extent, reminded of the cinematic scenes in films like Silent Running, I Am Legend and The Omega Man where humanity has, quite simply, vanished.

Paul says that he is currently based in Australia, but has previously lived in Los Angeles while completing an MFA in Art at the California Institute of the Arts. The “Wasteland Wanderlust” will be on show at the Metro Gallery until 8 September, 2012.

Hit the jump to watch a short documentary about the creation of the show.


Link to the video on Vimeo.