It’s sometimes funny how your first introduction to an artist is through everyday things — like album covers.
H.R. Giger (1940-2014), one of the preeminent artists of Fantastic Realism, was a Swiss surrealist painter, sculptor and set designer known for his biomechanical creatures, extraterrestrial landscapes and disturbing, though memorable, imagery of grotesque sensuality.
Giger discovered the airbrush and, along with it, his own unique freehand painting style, leading to the creation of many of his most well known works.
Giger kept a notepad next to his bed so he could sketch the terrors that rocked his uneasy sleep — nightmarish forms that could as easily have lumbered from prehistory as arrived from Mars.
Giger’s art enters the rarified realm of the near magical, and certainly the land of genius.
But this generous and humble artist avoided the limelight and rather let his work speak volumes of his mastery.
The most famous book with publications of his drawings and landscapes was the “Necronomicon” of 1977.
It was Giger’s published book Necronomicon that inspired Ridley Scott’s Alien.
His work is surrealistic, magical, detailed, and plainly gorgeous.
More of H.R. Giger‘s work can be found at http://www.hrgiger.com/ and http://visualmelt.com/H-R-Giger.
Humoring the Goddess 