Indonesian artist blends the medieval and the modern in digital art inspired by Hieronymus Bosch
- Anindya Anugrah creates whimsical digital images that mix medieval and Renaissance themes with pop culture
- A self-taught artist, she graduated with a law degree and left a job at a fintech company to work on her illustrations full time
Women of various races – in medieval gowns with fitted corsets and capes – sip drinks through curly straws, dab on make-up and snap group selfies, all in the comfort of a neon-lit bar.
This is just one of the whimsical digital images, blending medieval and Renaissance themes with pop culture, created by Indonesian artist and illustrator Anindya Anugrah.
Made up of an array of patterns, colourful characters and carefully chosen scenes, her work aims to elicit wonder and intrigue. Anindya’s online name is, aptly, @_phantasien, the German word for “fantasies”.
“Art from the Middle Ages and illuminated manuscripts fascinate me,” the 26-year-old says. “These two have been my biggest influences since I first started illustrating in my current style.”
Inspired by Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch and Italian artist Luigi Serafini, Anindya seeks to recreate a period of time often called the Dark Ages. Bosch, who died in 1516, is famous for religious narratives featuring images of demons and half-human beasts.
Serafini is best known for creating the Codex Seraphinianus, a bizarre 300-page encyclopaedia, published in 1981, of an imaginary world, with creations including a lovemaking couple morphing into a crocodile and a horse emerging from a chrysalis.
