deth p. sun.

I first encountered Deth P. Sun's work while living in San Francisco in a smaller gallery attached to a pop-culture-y themed shop. For some reason, I was immediately drawn to his pieces. Most of his work is either painted or inked.

Sun manages to create landscapes that are both detailed and extremely barren. This may be due to his use of contrast in color and well as leaving most of the texture in his work to the settings he places his characters in. Some pieces are even set in space... literally... as in, black backdrop with stars represented by white dots.

His character design is simple, but it often seems like his characters are engaged in some sort of epic adventure with foreign creatures and swords. Swords and lanterns are commonly shown throughout his work. His main character seems to be a black cat of sorts (most often, at least). The cat is often encountering wolves and ghosts. Everything he does feels so basic and almost childlike, but still seems to be part of some larger theme or plot, making his work feel consistent and parts of a larger whole. Perusing his paintings feels like viewing flashes of one epic story, or pieces of smaller stories circling the same cast of characters.

His most recent pieces include a broader use of color and texture, but still retain his classic bold black line-work and flatter use of color. Even with additions to his color palette, however, the work manages to not stray too far from his older work as to alienate itself, as he still sticks to pieces that mostly feel cooler in nature, only using small bursts of warmer colors here and there.