I came across Chris Turnham’s art pretty much by accident, (a link in one of the blog aggregators I think), so his work was a pleasant surprise. Turnham is an illustrator and gaming concept artist living in Washington state. There are examples on the site of some of his 3-D game design work for games like Evil Dead Regeneration, but what I found really appealing is his 2-D illustration.
His stylized images are sometimes in a 60’s modern vein, sometimes almost 19th century in feeling, but always have a beautifully controlled sense of color, value and spacial relationships. His judicious use of texture adds visual interest to open areas and he introduces atmospheric perspective with deceptively simple color and tone choices.
The result is a real visual pleasure. The site contains a variety of his illustrations. I found a mention somewhere that indicates the first four illustrations in the portfolio are part of a series that are interpretations of Decemberists songs.
I suspect he has been influenced by artists like Tadahiro Uesugi, but I don’t actually know that. The bio information in his site is slim, but indicates that he is young and just starting his career. I hope that means we’ll see a lot more from him.