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Phil Leath-Tetrault
Animator and Motion Designer
"This is the first time I've started making art as an adult."
Tell us about what you're currently working on.
I'm a digital artist specializing in landscapes. I was born in Baltimore, Maryland and graduated RIT's New Media Design program in 2007. I've worked for 10 years as a digital designer, and more recently, a digital artist. Since childhood, I've always been fascinated with arctic nature. My work expresses the feeling of being in locations such as a fjord in Greenland, the coast of Labrador, and deep in the forests of Finland. I use organic shapes filled with bright colors to capture the beauty, vastness, and loneliness of the arctic landscapes.
Has your work shifted in response to the pandemic? How?
This is the first time I've started making art as an adult. I think the pandemic, while isolating me, gave me an opportunity to start making these digital landscapes. The prints express through color and shape, places that I have either been to, or want to go to. Perhaps the urge to express this wanderlust sprung out of the pandemic isolation itself, as a reaction to being indoors.
How do you think the creative process can help us confront our "new" reality?
I think since art is something people are turning toward right now during lockdown, it's going to continue becoming more widely appreciated and understood as a means of expression. A lot of people are making things right now, and discovering their creative potential, which can become a new source of inspiration, activity, and income for them in the coming years. I think art and the creative process will help enrich people's lives in this uncertain time, giving them another outlet to express their joys, and frustrations.
Phil Leith-Tetrault lives in New York. See more of his work here.