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Spectrum #22

Spectrum 22: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art

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The best-selling Spectrum series continues with this 22nd lavishly produced annual. Challenging, controversial, educational, and irreverent, the award-winning Spectrum series reinforces both the importance and prevalence of fantastic art in today’s culture. With exceptional images by extraordinary creators, this elegant full-color collection showcases an international cadre of creators working in every style and medium, both traditional and digital. The best artists from the United States, Europe, China, Australia, South America and beyond have gathered into the only annual devoted exclusively to works of fantasy, horror, science fiction, and the surreal, making Spectrum one of the year’s highly most anticipated books.

Featured in Spectrum 22 are over 450 works by more than 240 diverse visionaries. With art from books, graphic novels, video games, films, galleries, advertising and the fine arts, Spectrum is both an electrifying art book for fans and an invaluable resource for clients looking for bright new talent. The entire field is discussed in an invaluable, found-nowhere-else Year In Review. Contact information for each artist is included.

Often imitated, never equaled, Spectrum 22 continues the freshness and excellence that was established over twenty years ago.

304 pages, Paperback

First published November 10, 2015

50 people want to read

About the author

John Fleskes

37 books10 followers

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5 stars
55 (62%)
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28 (31%)
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
Profile Image for Little Timmy.
7,352 reviews59 followers
June 28, 2019
I don't care what aspect you are into in the SiFi/Fantasy realm, the spectrum art books have someting for you to ohh and aww over. Paintings, sculpture. drawings it's all there and it's all awesome stuff. treat your eyes and brain and pick up a Spectrum, any year will do and get ready to be impressed. Highly recommended
Profile Image for Kate.
795 reviews15 followers
November 28, 2017
With Fleskes's direction the categories are becoming more orderly and easier to find within the book. This 22nd volume introduces the Rising Star Award for the first time, going firstly to Wylie Beckett. spectrum regular, Scott Gustafson, is the grand master of this year. As always new judges and events are mentioned in this year. Overall sales are steady in art, and CG Hub went kaput. It is good reminder to use multiple mediums to show your portfolio and to keep back-up for certain.
Personally, my favorite artists' works this year are Johnny Dombrowski, Victo Ngai, Kelly Wagner, Matthew Stewart, Tony DiTerlizzi, Scott Gustafson, Cory Gidget, J.A.W. Cooper, Cynthia Sheppard, Todd Lockwood, Vinod Rams, Audrey Benjaminsen, Diana Emilova Naneva, Sung Chou, Paul Sullivan, Brynn Metheney, Forest Rogers, David Silva, Koart Studios, Sam Bosma, Jensine Eckwall, Ed Binkley, Jessica Shirley, Raoul Vitale, Rebecca Yanovskaya, Sean Andrew Murray, Omar Rayyan, Jonas Jensen, Heather Theurer, Annie Stegg Gerard, Gregory Manchess, Miranda Meeks, Paolo Barbieri, Sam Guay, Rovina Cai, Alyssa Winans, and Chris Dunn. I could onward with so many more not even mentioned, but these I want to remember to further explore their works.
Profile Image for Hesper.
410 reviews57 followers
March 13, 2018
Definitely a more solid collection than my first Spectrum book, #21. I still ended up rolling my eyes at a few of the pieces, though at least those didn't feature breasts in different colors to the rest of the skin, so yay for that absurdly low bar being met. But! But!

Lots of Victo Ngai and Rovina Cai in this one, including some stuff of theirs that I hadn't caught on their blogs. There seem to be usual suspects though, as quite a few names featured just as heavily in 18 (Dan Dos Santos, Greg Manchess, David Palumbo, off the top of my head), which kind of makes me wonder if artist cliques are just as cabal-like as theater ones.

Anyway, I can see why Spectrum is the fantasy art book. There's a lot of good stuff in this one.
Profile Image for Mark.
Author 68 books94 followers
October 30, 2024
I have the entire run on my shelf and from time to time will dip into one to take my mind off, well, everything. I'm a bit sad they stopped doing an annual book, but the amount of work they showcase is amazing.
Profile Image for Kelly Daniel.
120 reviews2 followers
May 14, 2019
Just gorgeous.
People might view this as a coffee table book but much more than that. It's a great reference book for artists, for inspiration and admiration of others' skill.
166 reviews
April 2, 2023
Beautiful, gorgeous, wish I could draw! Plus my sister has a painting in this one! Good job, sis! :)
Profile Image for M.i..
1,379 reviews6 followers
March 8, 2017
This is a beautiful book packed with art and creations from some of the greatest minds in the game.
Profile Image for Trike.
1,931 reviews188 followers
January 11, 2016
As always, this is a lovely collection of a wide variety of art and artists. If I have a complaint, it's that there aren't enough new artists represented. Many of the usual suspects have numerous entries. It's nice to see excellent art, but perhaps a page or two less devoted to people we've seen before and more space given over to newer folks.

Other than that, you aren't going to go wrong with this entry.

There are quite a few dragons, as always, a fair number of Red Riding Hoods, and a veritable army of both anthropomorphic critters and people riding enormous animals of one kind or another. I do wish there were more Science Fiction-themed entries, but that's the ebb-and-flow of the art world.

Here are a few of my favorite pieces from this collection (links to artist's website):

Solidarity Of Heroes by Eric Deschamps:



Dragon vs. Raptors by David Silva



Save the Kitty? by Jennifer L. Meyer



New Earth Vista by Sung Choi



The Death of Meraxes by Chase Stone



Doc Saturn by Tim Bruckner

Profile Image for reherrma.
2,113 reviews37 followers
October 15, 2016
In diesem Jahresband der SPECTRUM-Reihe wird der Grafik-Künstler Scott Gustavson geehrt, der durch seine märchenhafte Fantasy-Motive beeindruckt, er ist der Gewinner des Grand Master Award 2015. John Fleskes läßt das Jahr 2015 im Bereich der Phantastic Art Revue passieren und im Hauptteil wird wiederum ein Paleidospkop der phantastischen (Grafik-) Kunst präsentiert. Der Band wird wieder in einer edlen Ausstattung mit prächtigen Bildern herausgegeben, mein Eindruck ist, dass unter der Herausgeberschaft von John Fleskes eine Steigerung der grafischen Qualität vonstatten gegangen ist im Vergleich zu den Ausgaben der Fenners...
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews

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