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a massive wolf shadow cloaks a building
“When We Flew Away.” All images courtesy of Owen Gent, shared with permission

Moral Qualms and Modern Anxieties Lurk in Owen Gent’s Illustrations

Grace Ebert

Ever intrigued by the possibilities of shadow and scale, Owen Gent renders narratives of psychological struggle and moral dilemmas. The Bristol-based illustrator works between analog and digital mediums to create scenes characterized by grainy textures and bold colors.

Gent (previously) often collaborates with editorial clients, and many of the works shown here were commissioned by publications like The New York Times, Psychologie Heute, and Middlebury Magazine. The illustrations encapsulate various modern anxieties and quandaries visualized through ominous beasts or a winding row of enormous dominoes on the verge of collapse.

Prints are available in Gent’s shop, and you can follow his latest projects on Behance and Instagram.

a person pushes the first enormous domino in a winding row of many
“Of Consequence”
pages fly away from the head of a red silhouette of a person
Front cover for ‘The Stavros Manuscript’
a tight crop of five cherry blossom trees drop leaves on a blue and orange backdrop
“Tom Lake finds Ann Patchett in a Chekhovian Mood”
two red figures stand on a large red form, while pages float away from the one on the left
Back cover for ‘The Stavros Manuscript’
lines ascend and descend across an iceberg with a ship nearby
“On Thin Ice”
red lines tied to a red silhouette of a person looking away with their shadow beneath them
“Fibromyalgia”
a white figure hovers above a larger black silhouette
“Near Death Experiences”
a tiny person hangs from the pinky finger of a massive thumbs up
“My Perfectly Hidden Depression”
a silhouette of a person looking at a screen with a black vortex coming out of it
“The Big Still—The Science of Hope”
polka dots cover the silhouette of a person leaning back at a desk with polka dots in a window
“Be Creative”

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