Songs Under The Apple Tree ©Linda Bergkvist
Today’s Friday Favorite, coming to you a day early so you have more time to enjoy her work, is Linda Bergkvist. Linda is a digital artist of exceptional skill as can be seen in the work featured here and on her website. Her work is so stunning that I find it difficult to describe in words; her pictures truly speak for themselves. Digital art is still a relatively new medium that, at least initially, had critics crying foul, denigrating its artistic value. I simply reply, “Hogwash!” and allow the work of digital illustrators like Linda Bergkvist to show how foolish that belief is.
(Linda and Azrael) ©Linda Bergkvist
Linda Bergkvist was born in and still resides in Umeå, Sweden. When it came time to pursue a profession Linda was initially unsure of her artistic talent so she studied languages with the intent to become a teacher. After doing that for some time she was offered a job at a local computer company and left her language study to enter the graphics world.
The Melody of Your Demise ©Linda Bergkvist
Linda Bergkvist’s artwork has a definite fairy tale element to it. She describes her inspiration thus, “I love the visual element of fairytales. Things that are fantastic and unnatural and not quite real fascinate me to no end. I suppose I am in love with old, cruel tales and the wickedness that comes wrapped up in lovely forms. I suppose, in a way, I still enjoy the very same things that I have all of my life – a mixture of fantasy and horror with a little twinge of romantic idealisation.”
Shades ©Linda Bergkvist
The realism that skilled digital artists attain in their work is amazing. Even more astounding is the level of photo realism acheived in rendering people.
Porcelain ©Linda Bergkvist
Porcelain is a perfect example. It looks like a painting and yet it looks so real. One of the things I love about Linda’s work is that she uses darker tones and much of her more bright work involves autumnal colors like those shown in the first picture and the following.
Autumn Whisperlings ©Linda Bergkvist
Linda Bergkvist is currently working on a book among other projects and her work has been featured in several other digital art books from Ballistic Publishing. Ballistic is soon to release a poster book under their Ballistic Masters series on the work of Linda Bergkvist.
I want to encourage you to visit Linda Bergkvist’s site Furiae. It features much of her work with various explanations, inspirations, etc. on each piece. Linda Bergkvist is very generous with the use of her art for things like I have used here and she has very specific requests concerning this, one being that a person use no more than 5 works. I have chosen the 5 that impressed me the most upon first viewing her work though there are many other types of work in her portfolio. There are horror related pieces, more fantasy and fairy tale works, and a section on “quick” works that she has done. One of these ‘quick studies’ is a really beautiful self-portrait. I have to laugh at the idea of them being called ‘quick’ simply because they are so incredible. Her site also contains wallpapers and digital art tutorials. Another site to showcasing her work is here.
Linda Bergkvist is a great talent and I hope you enjoy checking out more of her wondrous, enthralling work.
(I apologize if the large images cause slow loading times. The work deserves to be shown big and I didn’t want to minimize it any more than I had to in order to fit in on the site.)
lovely illustrations, digital really is a blooming illustration form, though i have to admit i’d love to see some digital illustrations that vary more beyond the typical fantasy genre.
it’s interesting–the woman resembles her illustrations. or do the illustrations resemble the woman?
Is it Friday already? 🙂
Beautiful art work. I can’t wait to see her art book. The first picture with fairy with wings reminds me of some of Nene Thomas’s most recent works.
I’ve been wanting it to be Friday quite badly which also accounts for the post being a day early.
I simply cannot draw people and for her to be able to paint people so realistic…not to mention having them actually resemble someone, herself included, is amazing. I imagine there is quite a bit of non-fantasy, non-sci-fi digital art out there…I’m not as aware of it as this is obviously more of what I am into. Even within these genres there seems to be quite a bit of variety. There is this fairy tale sort of work, traditional sword and sorcery/dragons and knights stuff, there is science ficiton and high tech science fiction. And then there is Dave McKean’s digital work that is fantasy/horror/mythology/everything-and-the-kitchen-sink.
Another self-portrait of sorts is her Glimpse of Summer painting in the Jade gallery on her site. She explains in the text that accompanies the picture. I like it. It is odd but very fun.
This site that I linked to in her quote has 3 pages of detailed pictures with very detailed explanations of the painting’s featured. It is well worth the read.
And just as an aside Linda Bergkvist contributes to this tech based website called The HUMlab Blog which is a “vibrant and diverse meeting place for the humanities, culture, and information technology”. One of her most recent postings I found very interesting and I think any art and/or movie lovers would to. It concerns how people look at art and film, particularly in regards to CG. It is here and it is very interesting.
I checked that link. cool stuff. it’s funny that she’s in Expose because I have dog eared that page in my bud plant catalog over 6 months ago. I had read about volume’s one and two of those books and would love to get one of them someday but they are on the high end pricewise for art books. i can’t really afford them right now. There are so many cool looking covers for art books in the Bud Plant catalog but they are priced between 50 and 100 dollars. It’s hard to pull the trigger on buying one of them on just the cover image alone without getting to see the interior pages. Do you what I mean?
Ya, even the softcovers are $40-$50. I just updated the comment above your last comment Jeff with another link that you might find interesting, especially in that it references the King Kong movie.
And here’s another interesting post by Linda B. about movies and the internet.
Breathtaking artwork!
interesting pictures… and it is never too early to start a friday. This week I started mentally on wednesday to wind down for the week!!
I’m with you all the way, Jude. It was a weird week in which I’ve needed a Friday every day…thank God it is tomorrow!
Oh my! This is just so lovely.
Truly enchanting. Thankyou.
Here via Michele.
Wow! Just beautiful. I’ll have to show my daughter when she wakes up. Her name is Butterfly and she LOVES pictures with butterflies in them.
She should definitely be thrilled then Kristal. Thanks for the visit, you too Annie.
Did you reply “ya”? Is that like the ya in Fargo? Oh ya. Or is it like the song from Ferris Bueller’s “Ohhhh ya?” The artwork is a little bit dreamy, ya.
Ya I’m a little feisty today. Karen’s leaving with her girlfriends for most of the weekend and I’m preparing for battle. Me against the little people. I feel a slumber party coming on and food combinations like fruit snacks with hot dogs, ketchup sandwiches and the savior of single dads, McDonald’s. “How about a free spanking with your slurpee?”
Good luck tonight, you’ll be needing it doncha-know! We’re taking Jessica off James’ hands so he has a slightly more even battle tonight. Its Papa John’s pizza and Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit for us this fine evening.
Carl yet another wonderful artist!
On the other hand, I did a little searching and thanks for the Michele thing. As far as the pics and stuff, ITS MAKING MY HEAD HURT! Maybe I am not computer savy enough for this….
My brain is now officially fried!
We’ll get it figured out for you Jamie, no worries.
Thanks for the link. I feel so much better just looking at something beautiful. I can only look out the window SO often, and this time of year is not the best for that!
I’ve seen her site before and you’re right, her artwork is simply breathtaking. It’s amazing the things you can do with computers these days!
Hi,
I am here via Michelle’s – I am playing the comment game a few days late – but better late than never!
Excellent site and images!
Hope your weekend has turned out well.
Friday has come and gone….
Smiles,
Chrissie
Thanks for inspiration
anytime!
i love all the fairy stuff it looks beautiful
I’m trying to find a place, whether a store in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, or a website that I can purchase prints of Linda’s! I can’t find any!
Is there somewhere you can buy her prints? Does anyone know?
Yes, Cheryl. If you go to
http://www.ballisticpublishing.com/
You can buy a set of her prints relatively inexpensively.
the picture of the girl in the pink with the bird kind of reminds me of Johana from Sweeney Todd or what Johana should look like
Sweeny Todd is something I unfortunately haven’t seen yet, but I will remedy that as soon as it comes out on DVD.
It seems like the only prints I can find of hers dont include the one that I reeeaaalllly want. Can someone tell me where i can get a print of “Hajieelkhe – renewed”???
Honestly I would just go to her website, the link is in this post, and get her email address and send her an email asking if that one is available in print form. I do this all the time for artists I admire and they are always more than willing to point you to prints if they exist.
yeah, I did but she didnt reply so I guess she has not checked her mail in like a month…I sent it to the website, maybe I should send it to her business mail?