Artist 1 Profile, David McLeod, Illustrator/Animator

Artist and designer David McLeod hails originally from Australia and has lived in New York City since 2012. He has over 18 years of experience in Computer Graphics (CG) with a degree in Graphic Design and New Media. He has been commissioned to create commercial art by major corporations for their branding, digital advertising and marketing programs, has been an animator for major films and music videos, all while his art has proliferated throughout social media. His work is considered “intoxicating…hypnotic…highly detailed…leaping to life off-screen…mesmerizing in their smoothness…the tangible informing the tangible…,” all descriptors of his 3D digital animations and 2D illustrations that experiment with abstracting shapes and textures in vivid color from the real world. He experiments with reconceiving bespoke typography and lettering, and usually spends his time in Cinema4D, Real Flow and Houdini. He is known for pushing the mathematics and geometry of nature by using motion qualities in unique ways, like creating movement of a flower-type form in a way similar to how a cloud moves. His objects look grounded, real and touchable, perhaps from an alien world. McLeod has pushed reality into the abstract while telling us a tangible story. I believe his approach is more difficult and complex than an approach that creates abstract art for the sake of abstraction.

Three of McLeod’s Works of Art: Compared to the other artists, I really appreciate McLeod’s use of color, texture, his inspiration from Nature, and the joyful and sometimes humorous expression in his work that is good therapy for the soul. His style is inspiring my work as I try to achieve a similar attitude in my artwork that is grounded in the real world and looks like realistic photographs of physical objects. After having served 30 years in the Marine Corps including a combat tour to Iraq, I have no interest in dark, heavy, chaotic, political, disruptive art. When I found his animations, I enjoyed his manipulation of reality and am drawn to his clean lines, images that are illuminating and expressive as a story. McLeod’s animations are hypnotic as seen in one of my choices, Colourflow 3. I can watch at length as if it’s a school of anchovies swarming around in the sea, with the colony protecting itself in the swarm. Another example of his work comes from his Flora/Fauna series. The series abstracts reality while still being believable and also other-worldly. The final CG of a flower blossom is a pleasant expression that plays with light, color, and contrast that is a believable interpretation of a real flower. McLeod has an amazing mind to come up with such diverse ideas, and I am interested in learning how he produces his work. How does he do that??

One great example of McLeod’s mesmerizing 3D animation is Colourflow 3 (below):