MADE IN ISOLATION

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.