A Phenomenal Talent Who Uses Photoshop To Paint

Every once in a while, you trip upon someone who exhibits some amazing talent. Michal Sawtyruk of Poland is a young freelance artist who appears to work primarily in Adobe Photoshop, creating exterior and interior scenes with geometric swashes of intense color and reflection and intricate, subtle touches of shadow, texture, and light — in a series of layers that he tweaks and shifts and flops and stretches and reworks as his time-lapse videos demonstrate.

His work, perhaps at first glance, looks elementary and simply a collection of rectangles and ovals but there are subtle touches at play in shadow, light, occasional wet textures, and mood.

His style evokes imagery from 1950s- or ’60s-era Madison Avenue advertising with its hard-edged sliced and cut surfaces. His work is often playful and bright with a touch of humor now and then.

Clearly, for Sawtyruk, and unlike some of us more pedestrian users, Photoshop isn’t merely a tool for photographic touch-up or lampooning politicians and celebrities. It’s an artist’s tool that hopefully will propel Sawtyruk to much-deserved success.

Sawtyruk’s work is nothing short of amazing. He is beginning to dabble in animation work, and according to the scant bio on his website, has already worked for Dreamworks Animation. Disney's Pixar team would do well to bring Sawtyruk into their fold because his work brings a fresh and dynamic approach to scenery in particular. I would love to see an entire feature film in his unique style and my guess is that many of his images could be mapped easily (or with a bit of work) for motion as characters move through a scene.

Good luck to you Mr. Sawtyruk. Keep astounding us.