Hannah Stouffer is a California-based artist and commercial illustrator who takes the themes of raw animal power, old-world flair, death, and decadence in the modern and natural world and smashes them all together in beautiful pieces that are exploding with color. Most importantly, she kicks ass. In almost all of her work, you can almost see this visible tensions between life and death, sensuality and frigid indifference, vivid color and stark blacks and whites. It’s intense in every case, even in her commercial work. In fact, with someone as popular as her in the realm of commercial design and illustration (see Blood is the New Black skatedecks, Secret deodorant, Ludacris…), that stands as one of the most impressive things about Stouffer’s work: it’s consistent in its execution and content in every instance. It seems like she creates what she wants to create, for the most part, and that the passion behind the work is genuine. To top it all off, she’s self-taught, which you have to dig.
Though all her work is beyond impressive, the true beauty and skill comes through in her hand-inked illustrations that are set off by larger-than-life watercolors. Take a gander at her portfolio and you’ll see what I mean.
Ooh. And she has an Etsy store. Please someone buy me that tiger-snake-fight pillow.
(Pictured below: ‘Black Dawn Brings Me Here’ ink on paper; ‘In These Arms I Keep’ ink on paper; Packing illustrations for treasury of erotic stories book ‘X’ by Chronicle Books; Skatedeck made with Blood is the New Black for Arts Projekt; ‘The Climax of a Species’ ink on paper; and a piece from ‘In Death’s Arms, Never Stray’ series.)
