Heavy Metal Cover 1985

Boris Vallejo made this Heavy Metal Cover in 1985, and just look at the colour palette, it’s just so evocative of a very specific time and place. It’s a moment in artmaking where fantasy and science fiction collided with a certain kind of high gloss finish and frankly, a very male gaze. The texture here is all about smoothness, every muscle is perfectly defined, almost airbrushed. The colours blend seamlessly into one another, creating this hyper-real but also totally unreal vision. I mean, look at that lightning, it's practically a character in itself, crackling with energy, framing these two figures in a dance of power. It makes me think of Frank Frazetta, but with a twist, maybe a nod to the romance novel covers that were also so popular at the time. It’s this interesting dialogue, this conversation between different genres and styles, all wrapped up in one very shiny, very muscular package. Art is always about exchange, about taking what came before and twisting it into something new, something that reflects the moment it was made.