PREY TO SOME WILD BEAST

source: highlike
Work: Phlegm is a Sheffield based muralist and artist who first developed his fantastical illustrations in self-published comics. His work now extends to the urban landscape, and can mostly be seen in run-down and disused spaces. Phlegm creates surreal illustrations to an untold story, weaving a visual narrative that explores the unreal through creatures from his imagination. His storybook-like imagery is half childlike, half menacing, set in built up cityscapes with castles, turrets and winding stairways. At other times the city itself is the setting for his long limbed half-human, half-woodland creatures. In this dream world a viewer comes across impossible flying machines and complex networks of levers, pulleys and cogs, set beside telescopes, magnifying glasses and zephyrs. Working solely in monochrome, his fine technique and intricate detail can be seen as a curiosity cabinet of the mind. Each drawing forms part of a grand narrative that extends worldwide, in countries including Norway, Canada, Switzerland, Sri Lanka, USA, Belgium, Poland, Italy, Slovakia and Spain.
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source: artlog
British street artist Phlegm creates intricate, Dürer-esque graffiti illustrations infused with anxiety and dread. Throughout his works, a gaunt hunchback man is weighed down by his struggle for survival, stuck in a machine or being eaten by animals.
Phlegm’s aesthetic was born out of his self-published comics and cartoons, which evolved into large-scale black-and-white murals. His work can be seen in New York, Slovakia, Ireland, Italy, and the UK. His most recent project is a mural in Oslo depicting his protagonist being eaten by a giant crocodile.
Most impressive about the prolific young artist is not the scope of his work but the attention to detail: each piece is infinitely textured to the point of obsession. More than being painting or graffiti, a story is woven into the landcape: a man’s endless search for escape.