Dark and Lovely

In a world of illustrators and artists all vying for attention, Ruben Ireland stands out by fading to black: his quirky, stylish illustrations are at their most striking when favoring the darker end of the scale. Often featuring soulful-eyed, raven-haired gamines wearing masks or equally mask-like dark eyeshadow, there's a quality to his drawings that's as romantic as it is foreboding.


Judging from the stylized imagery and prevalence of swans and rabbits, Ireland may be inspired by equally dark movies like Black Swan and Donnie Darko (although there's definitely a stylized dark version of Uma Thurman from Pulp Fiction). But even if he takes inspirations from them, the resulting imagery is uniquely his own.

I can go on about what I think makes his work so appealing, but methinks it best to just let you marvel at the work and decide for yourself. And you can marvel at Ireland's visions as much as you like by purchasing prints in various sizes, at prices ranging from $18 for 8" x 10" mini prints, to $65 for 27" x 36" gallery prints. From Society 6.