Fantastic Digital Circlism Portraits by Ben Heine

 

BEN HEINE (born June 12, 1983 in Abidjan, Ivory coast) is a Belgian multidisciplinary visual artist. He is best known for his original series “Pencil vs Camera“, “Digital Circlism” and “Flesh and Acrylic“.

DIGITAL CIRCLISM is a project Ben started in 2010 as well. It is somehow a synthesis of Pop Art and Pointillism. In this series, Ben usually makes portraits of celebrities with digital tools using only flat circles on a black background. Each circle has a single color and a single tone. “Trends Hunter”, the world’s largest trend community, said about “Digital Circlism”: “Through the use of graphic softwares and a whole lot of creativity, Ben Heine is able to create iconic faces from history and pop culture by drawing circles of various sizes and colors, in order to give them a dynamic and 3-dimensional appearance“. The artist stated he has been making portraits for over 15 years now but it wasn’t very long ago that he started developing this original technique. “As I’ve been working with digital tools recently, this came quite naturally, and I’m a big fan of Pop Art and Pointillism. “Digital Circlism” is a modern fusion of them“. Ben takes inspiration from several photographs, then creates a brand new photomontage or a rough digital painting and he finally begins the long process of placing circles on a black background using image editing softwares and using his digital sketches as references (it requires between 100 and 180 hours of work for one portrait). In the people he chooses to portray, Ben often opts for celebrities he likes or admires, mainly singers or musicians, such as Bob Marley, Freddie Mercury, Eminem, Elvis Presley, Lady Gaga, Marilyn Monroe, Johnny Depp…

 

Maria Papaefstathiou

Maria Papaefstathiou is a Greek visual designer, poster artist and editor based in Athens, with over 30 years of experience in graphic design. She is the founder and editor of Graphic Art News, an international platform showcasing inspiring work in graphic design, typography, illustration and visual arts since 2010. Her creative work explores socially engaged poster design and portraiture, celebrating cultural figures from Greece, Jamaica and beyond. In 2011, she co-founded the International Reggae Poster Contest with Jamaican creative activist Michael “Freestylee” Thompson, connecting designers worldwide through art, music and social awareness.

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