With coronavirus confining people to their homes and rising fears over environmental destruction, a new breed of visual artists is creating utopian landscapes, buildings and interiors for armchair escapists. Here are nine of the best practitioners.
Renderings depicting ethereal seaside homes to surreal, pastel-hued dreamscapes have become popular in recent months as people in lockdown seek to be transported beyond their own four walls.
"Utopian spaces feed into people's imaginations"
Fantasy renderings "offer a chance to wonder and escape," said Paul Milinksi, creative director of Vaulter.
"Given the global situation, the desire for escapism is at an all-time high," added interior designer and creative director Charlotte Taylor, who collaborates with a roster of 3D artists to realise imaginary spaces. "These utopian and fictional spaces feed into people's imaginations and appetite for a change of scenery, be it completely impossible or not."
Make-believe landscapes are also creeping into the world of product styling, which has long relied on digital trickery to fake the real world but is now turning towards escapism.
Designers creating fantasy spaces
Taylor was one of the artists invited to collaborate with young designers as part of Offsite Online, a virtual design fair organised by New York design magazine Sight Unseen that collaborated with Virtual Design Festival this spring.
Since many of the designers could not fabricate and pho...