Aaron Horkey

Aaron Horkey:


Aaron Horkey is an artist and designer from Minnesota whose intricate, richly detailed images can be both beautiful and disconcerting simultaneously.
Horkey has designed and illustrated posters, album covers, skateboard graphics, magazine covers and clothing designs as well as creating graphics for reproduction as limited edition prints.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to have a dedicated web presence, and his publishing company, Dead Arts Publishing, ceased production in the time since I put him on my list for a post and finally getting to writing one.
He is represented by Jacky Winter Group, and there is a gallery of his work on their site, but the images are frustratingly small, particularly given the sometimes astonishing level of detail in Horkey’s images.
One of the best sources I’ve found for his work is a series of posts on the Shrieking Tree blog, including a two part interview (and here). These include large (sometimes quite large) images of Horkey’s intricate drawings, often in their preliminary form before color is applied, that give you a much better idea of the nature of his work.
You can also find some of Horkeys posters reproduced reasonably large on OMG Posters, and a selection on Ufunk.
Horkey’s designs often include highly stylized lettering and design elements, on which as much attention is lavished as the imagery, sometimes more. The words are intricate in a way that reminds me of 1960′s psychedelic poster art, with a similar aesthetic of “if you can’t read it, you don’t get it”.