Mathew Borrett’s digital cityscapes are the kinds you might find in a post-apocalyptic video game. Inspired by both his admiration for architecture as well as fantasy, Borrett admits that his early love for LEGO also plays a big part in his work.
“I was born in 1972 and grew up in rural Ontario,” he writes on his website. “I was fortunate to have a big ancient barn to play in. Despite an acute allergy to hay, I would build elaborate hay forts. There were woods and beaver ponds nearby to explore. During those weeks of the summer when too much pollen was about, I’d retreat to my room where I would draw, build elaborate things out of Lego, and make primitive computer graphics on my Commodore 64.”
Now he builds imagined worlds full time, working as an illustrator as well as an environment/concept artist in the film and TV industry. According to Borrett, some people find his spaces claustrophobic, while others want to linger inside them. “I enjoy the combination of the creepy and the whimsical,” he once remarked in an interview with Line Gallery. “Perhaps this boils down to wanting my drawings to be haunted in the same way that my dreams locales often feel haunted.”
This sense of hauntedness is also the result of his landscapes being eerily devoid of any human presence. “I hope that a viewer will be able to put themselves in my spaces,” he explained. “To that end, I’ve avoided adding any figures of any kind to inhabit the rooms, so the viewer is free to imagine themselves inhabiting them if they choose.”
Enter at your own risk.
