Simon Stålenhag

Simon Stålenhag (1984 – ) is a Swedish artist known for his unique style of Retro-Futuristic digital images. His work, which often features nostalgic Swedish countryside alternate history environments, combines elements of his childhood with themes from sci-fi movies, resulting in a stereotypical Swedish landscape with a Neo-Futuristic bent. Stålenhag’s art often includes giant robots and megastructures alongside regular Swedish items like Volvo and Saab vehicles. As his work has evolved, he has created a backstory for it, focused on a governmental underground facility. He uses a drawing tablet and computer for his work, which is designed to resemble oil painting. Even after switching to digital methods, he has stated that he puts "a lot of effort into making the digital brushes behave naturally and preserve a certain amount of ‘handwriting’ in the brush strokes".