When digital painter and sculptor Danny van Ryswyk was eight years old, he had an unusual encounter with a UFO, an experience that continues to profoundly impact his artwork- illustrations and 3D printed sculptures of moody, Victorian-styled figures, often displayed in glass bell jars as if they were scientific specimens. Like that flying saucer from his childhood memory, Ryswyk’s characters are darkly fantastical and strange, monochromatic figures that blend his unique interest in the meaning of dreams and the inexplicable like aliens and Victorian spirit photography. Ryswyk takes what mystified us centuries ago and applies it to modern age technology, using 3D software to sculpt his work in a way that he likens to working with clay, wood or stone, but in a digital environment. It’s a process that he explains to great length at his blog, where a single piece can take weeks or months to finish. Sometimes, he also translates his 3D models into surrealist digital paintings, where he can explore the the dark mythology of his characters’ world. “I prefer to work completely from imagination and let the sculpture evolve in a natural way,” he shares. ” My work is a fuse of dream imagery with a distinctly paranormal bent. All ideas are influences of my interest and fascination for the supernatural.” Danny van Ryswyk will next show in his solo exhibition at Roq La Rue Gallery in Seattle on April 7th, 2016.
models, before painting
The wooden sculptures of 
Now on view at