We’ve seen many artists use popular culture as their main source of inspiration, and Nashid Chroma found a way to do it in the most meaningful way possible. His illustrations explore the roots of celebrity worship in the modern world, while also making sure to give the artists that inspired them their flowers.
Chroma is a digital pop artist from Toronto, who embarked on quite a journey before finding his true calling and attracting over 190,000 followers to his Instagram page. He got his degree in fine art and psychology at the University of Waterloo before switching his attention to architecture during his master’s studies, but eventually decided to stick to thriving as a digital artist.
Chroma’s body of work explores the threshold between the iconic and the anonymous, and that’s one of the reasons why many of his illustrations put celebrities front and center.
“This tension between human and object has always been an inspiration to Nashid and his art responds to this phenomenon. Celebrities are real people with emotions, insecurities, and dreams – but they are also idols of secular worship and adoration,” he writes on his official website.
Chroma’s illustrations are instantly recognizable thanks to their floral and geometric elements, and using them isn’t a coincidence. He wants these adornments to humanize his subjects, while also giving them an abstract feel and making them look disconnected and object-like.
