Solace Wonder
Born at the dawn of the 80’s, Solace was molded by a golden era of pop culture. Raised on Star Wars, Mad Magazine, and Batman, Solace displayed a love for drawing and art at an early age. He began as most do, by mimicking the heroes of the day. It wasn’t long before pages upon pages were filled with doodles of Spy vs. Spy, Alf, Garfield, and the always popular skateboarding T-Rex. Garnering the praises of impressed classmates and his family was all the show-off needed…”I want to be an artist when I grow up.”
Well Solace hasn’t quite grown up, but he is an artist.
Rooted in the Northwest, he draws much inspiration from his surroundings, lush landscapes that are broken up by cities and towns. It’s a place where the “hustle & bustle” and taking it easy go hand in hand. From this emerges a pop sensibility that fuses together organic textures and vivid graphics. Using street tools and techniques, Solace paints backgrounds that transport you into a different time and place. Utilizing nature as stencils, with an often electric palette, he gives the illusion that you’ve been immersed in a Technicolor forest.
Intent on engrossing us in his own world, Solace has an always growing stable of characters known as “the Wanders.” Although these characters reside in an alternate realm, it is a realm kin to ours. Like every civilization, its’ obsession with experience and worldly trinkets drives “the Wanders” to explore the unknown and bring with them their criticisms on mankind. These vacant-eyed beasts allow Solace to explore the many facets of his visual narrative. Relying heavily on irony and comedy, he hopes to induce a sense of nostalgia.