Dylan Izaak

Dylan Izaak’s distinctive approach to cityscape paintings have made a huge impact on art lovers and won him a place amongst an elite group of artists. They were all tasked with capturing the London 2012 Olympics. His characteristic view of wonky buildings and skylines in some of the most recognisable locations around the world offers a distinctive contemporary take on urban life.

Background

He spent most of his childhood moving between the UK and Australia. His creative path reflected this unusual childhood, as he began his artistic career by seeking out interesting buildings around the world to draw in his highly personal style. Back in England he forged an enviable reputation and his high impact images are now collected all over the world.

Style and approach

Working on aluminium, Dylan creates an accurate sketch then draws over the top at speed to almost liberate the image – as he says, to allow for ‘happy accidents’ – then reworks the drawing many times until he likes what he sees. This means that although each piece is created with meticulous care and attention to detail, they retain a strong sense of immediacy and spontaneity. He then begins the painstaking process of painting gloss into each individual shape that he has made. Once the whole piece is coloured, he draws all the lines back on top with black paint. This time consuming process takes an average of 100 hours work for each piece.

“I like to see objects not as one complete entity, but rather as the sum of their parts. This is how I approach my own artwork, exaggerating certain features of buildings and giving them a twist here and there to accentuate the character that I see in it.”