These Paintings Lead You into an Infinite Abyss of Vibrant Color and Meticulous Texture

This post con­tains some affil­i­ate links. If you make a pur­chase, Brown Paper Bag may earn an affil­i­ate com­mis­sion. Learn more here.

Artist and illus­tra­tor Yel­lena James cre­ates col­or­ful abstract paint­ings of places unknown but that feels odd­ly famil­iar. Her metic­u­lous­ly detailed forms resem­ble fields of flow­ers and under­wa­ter scenes, yet they refrain from being ground­ed. Instead, each work is an infi­nite abyss of vibrant hues and tex­ture that exists in an in-between space.

This idea, that we’re nei­ther here nor there, is at the crux of Yel­lena’s lat­est works. “I attempt to cre­ate an ethe­re­al place which is hyp­not­i­cal­ly famil­iar and yet haunt­ing­ly exot­ic, adding tiny lit­tle details in a sort of com­pul­sive med­i­ta­tion, until a per­fect bal­ance is cre­at­ed,” she writes. “The intri­ca­cy and high detail, along with hints of exist­ing organ­ic shapes lend to the inti­ma­cy and believ­abil­i­ty of each new world.”

Yel­lena sells her work through her Etsy shop. If you’d like to learn to draw from her, check out her book: Star, Branch, Spi­ral, Fan: Learn to Draw from Nature’s Per­fect Design Struc­tures. It’s now avail­able on Ama­zon. And don’t for­get to fol­low her on Insta­gram!

Artist Yellena James creates colorful abstract paintings of imaginary landscapes. Go on a new journey every time you look at one of them.