Polish painter Zdzislaw Beksinski is an artist whose name I ran across in the links section of some other artist’s page, and at the time I didn’t think he had any relation to metal whatsoever, other than perhaps as a visual inspiration. His work is so unbelievably cool and so completely metal that I kept coming back to it. After finding some more information about him I learned that Beksinski’s paintings actually have been used by several bands, including Nightbringer, Leviathan and Blood of Kingu. His unique visual style has also probably served as inspiration for numerous other bands and artists in the genre.

Beksinski was quite prolific and moved through numerous styles over the course of his life. He is perhaps best known (certainly in the metal world) for his output during his “fantastic period,” which lasted from the 1960s through the 1980s and saw Beksinski producing paintings featuring dark, disturbing and surrealistic imagery. His art depicts alien landscapes, strange decaying textures, and mysterious hooded or skeletal figures. The disturbing, otherworldly nature and skeletal elements of his work often causes Beksinksi to be compared with H.R. Giger. Beksinski himself said of his painting during this period that he wished to paint “in such a manner as if I were photographing dreams”.

Unfortunately, Beksinksi was tragically murdered in 2005 over what sounds like a petty disagreement with a teenage aquaintance. In his later years he had shifted to a sparser, more abstract style and also experimented with digital art and photography manipulation.

Beksinski fortunately has several websites dedicated to his work. His (extremely well-done!) official site is located at http://www.beksinski.pl/, and is one of the only sites I’ve been to where the embedded music is actually a good thing.

There is also an extensive gallery of his work at the Dmochowski Gallery site, especially useful if you get tired of the flash browsing on the official site.

You can also buy Beksinski limited edition art prints from The Belvedere Gallery. At $395.00 each they are kind of expensive, but having a Beksinski print in your house seems worth the money to me!

Finally you can buy a few cheaper prints as well as some books on Beksinski from Amazon.com. The Fantastic Art of Beksinski seems to be a good representation of his work.