Retrofuturistic art by Simon Stålenhag

These paintings by Simon Stålenhag are wonderfully imaginative and beautiful, capturing so much of my childhood in Sweden during the late seventies and eighties - the reality and how I wished it to be. Landscapes and architecture are quite faithful to that time, place, and mindset. So is the futurism. Robots, ships and buildings are like the images in Science Fiction comics, and books with names like 'How we'll live int he future', or 'The world year 2000', that I used to browse through in our local branch of the public library. The compositions remind me of how I wished the reality was at the time. How I still wish it would be perhaps? The mix of the high technology and the mundane.

Bringing back a feeling in me I try to catch some time but never quite manage to. A word on the tip of my tongue, a shape at the corner of my eye. A style found in European and South American SF, or just before the grittiness of 'punk?

Sources:

• Saw a link to these paintings on a random visit to boingboing this morning.
• Prints can be ordered from redbubble by the way.

Oh, and very many extra bonuses for the (almost) 'Televerket' logotype.

.L