Photo by Leva Ann

Seth Styles

Every human has her/his own built in mythology. This mythology is one of our many gifts; something bestowed upon us by a source beyond us; a secret message from divinity. Each of us reads her or his mythology better than anyone else, but our individual mythologies can augment the greater universal mythology and even be incorporated into it. Some of us will turn away from our mythologies, strangle them to whispers in the night, blur their eyes until the images fade. But I am here because I feel it is my honor and duty to share my mythology, my secret message from a greater source, with as many people as possible. 

My art and writing explores the archetypes that speak to me, even some half-remembered part of me. Though my influences are wide-ranging, I skew generally toward the realm of horror fantasy. I take influence primarily from literature, film, and music. A glance at my portfolio reveals shades of psychedelia and glam, dystopian and post-apocalyptic science fiction, fairytales and metaphysical philosophies, new romantic and gothic horror, fantasy and disco.  

A few months after sharing my work with the public, I was asked to contribute three original tarot-inspired pieces for the Tarot Art Show, July 2014 at LAST Projects Gallery in Hollywood. One of my pieces, "The Fool", was chosen by LA Weekly to promote the event on their website. In October 2014, I released a limited edition set of 9 postcards comprising the entirety of the pieces I'd created for my Classic Monsters series, featuring my renditions of classic monsters in literature and film. In early 2015, Rita Mery's children's novella Angel Castle was released, featuring 11 pieces of original artwork as well as 8 character profile images. 

I spent most of 2016 focusing on musical projects including releasing the debut album by my glam rock band Peppermint Pumpkin and assisting on guitar for Carisa Bianca Mellado's band. 

In 2017, in addition to continuing my musical work on my own projects, I shared the Swords Suit portion of my currently dormant tarot deck project and began writing work on a graphic novel for a horror-fantasy-meets-space-opera that I'd been formulating since early 2014.

The following years found me balancing copywriting work (primarily in the ever-shifting cannabis industry), while quietly writing and illustrating over 60 pages of my forthcoming graphic novel Cypress Valley that follows a teenage girl trapped in a neverending shopping mall in 1987 with only the distorted ghosts of her former classmates and a bitter quadriplegic mannequin to keep her company. With Cypress Valley over 2/3 complete, I shifted focus to my ongoing series, the aforementioned horror-fantasy-meets-space-opera, The Death of Romance. This series finds me exploring digital art for the first time while Cypress Valley displays a more traditional technique of pen on thick watercolor paper. Starting in 2019, I began to release music from a sci fi concept album I recorded with multi-instrumentalist and producer Kim Curtains under the Peppermint Pumpkin banner. The sprawling 17-track dystopian art rick opera Midnight Climax will be released gradually on a song-by-song basis with cover art for each single digitally painted by me.

If you are interested in using my art, illustrations, writing or commissioning me for a project, feel free to email me at seth.styles.art@gmail.com.