Featured Artist: Dave McKean
One of the more successful artists to ever have their work grace the cover of an extreme metal CD, Dave McKean has had quite a career as a graphic designer, illustrator, and most recently, film director.
Metal fans will recognize McKean’s work from the album covers for My Dying Bride’s “As The Flower Withers” and “Symphonaire Infernus Et Spera Empyrium,” Paradise Lost’s “Gothic” and “Shades of God,” and others for Fear Factory, Machine Head, Disincarnate, Life Of Agony, Kreator, Front Line Assembly, Cemetary, and many more.
Aside from album cover art, McKean has also produced illustrations for numerous comic books and graphic novels. He often works with writer Neil Gaiman and has contributed illustrations to many of Gaiman’s works, such as “The Sandman” series. McKean and Gaiman collaborated on the 2005 feature film “Mirrormask,” which McKean directed and helped write. McKean also served as a conceptual artist on two of the recent Harry Potter movies.
There doesn’t seem to be any sort of official website for Dave McKean, so buying prints or other reproductions of his work does not seem possible. Fortunately, there are several great fan sites which feature large galleries of his art. Check out The Art of Dave McKean.
