Los Angeles based artist Steve Kim creates haunting, colorful digital and ink illustrations mostly inspired by his virtual experiences. The majority of his pieces focus on a variety of modern themes, some sounding straight out of science fiction, including body possession to portraits of users that catch his eye on Tumblr. His interest in this type of subject matter undoubtedly rubs off of his professional work for clients such as tech blog Polygon and the Verge. For example, his vibrantly colored piece “Body Tourist,” portrays a female scientist inhabiting the body of a young, virile man. Set against a magenta background, Kim closes in on the face which becomes fragmented into a splash of cyan. Throughout all of his art, he shows an interest in color relationships, often overlapping large bands of the CMYK color model and playing with negative space. Another piece, untitled, imposes a skull onto a floating Bitcoin in a slightly eerie image meant to personify Satoshi Nakamoto, the currency’s creator. While more subdued, it represents the overall ethereal quality in Kim’s scenes, which exist somewhere between the real and virtual realm.
detail
detail
Japanese artist 
Using 3D scanning, artist 
Self-taught photographer