Prepare your eyeballs.

Fenghua Zhong hails from the coastal city of Xiamen in China. He is an illustrator, concept artist and instructor at the E-Art School of Design he helped found.

Below you’ll find mind-blowing paintings showcasing cosmic battles between gods and monsters and weird animal creatures. Fenghua is ridiculously talented so make sure you have your eyeballs tightly clasped. They’re going to get pounded.

Each image links back to the corresponding gallery, of course. Enjoy!

Fenghua’s paintings feature characters from the Chinese novel, Journey to the West, published in the 16th century.

The novel is strongly rooted in Chinese folk religion, Chinese mythology, and Taoist and Buddhist philosophy. According to Wikipedia, the pantheon of Taoist immortals and Buddhist bodhisattvas can still be found in some Chinese religious attitudes today (which is something I did not know).

Fenghua has reimagined these mythological characters on a gloriously grand scale, using a muted, often shadowed composition that includes subtle lighting. The impression this gives is of light petering out and of a gloomy world covered by perpetual storm clouds.  The amazing detail in his work combined with atmospheric perspective and scale and weird angles produces mind-numbingly beautiful fantasy that’ll keep your eyes busy for a while.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments and remember to check out this week’s Art of Science Fiction over on Kōsa Press’ blog.

Enjoy!

Woelf