Peter Diamond is a Canadian illustrator living and working in Vienna, Austria. You can easily recognize the japanese art influences, some sort of punk art and even mythology. I discovered him and I felt in love with the devils on his blog. If you have seen some anime, like Fullmetal Alchemist, or if you are a fan of the terror movies, like Hellraiser, you are going to understand his sthetic. But there is something intelligent behind his drawings. He explains easily how he can get his inspiration through the observation of exhibitions in museums or investigating a topic. There is nothing about shallow inspiration in the work of Peter. You can read the intelligence in some artworks and this is exactly the case.

About his first works he said:

“In high-school I had my first taste of illustration, when an ambitious friend of mine recruited me to draw posters for the punk rock shows he was organising. It was classic stuff: punks in leather jackets, devils and zombies, scenes of weirdness and bodily harm, and as many crazy typefaces as I could come up with. Since it was all rendered in scrappy black-and-white Xerox, I was forced to put down my pencils, take up inks and learn to draw clearly and boldly. Trying to catch the eyes and the imaginations of the local kids I began to learn the basics of visual communication. “

He moved to Halifax to study Fine Arts at NSCAD University where:

“…I continued to illustrate within the music scene. Those xeroxed flyers lead to commissions for album covers and t-shirts, exhibitions of my illustrations, and judging CD artwork for the Juno Awards in 2007. During my time at NSCAD I also drew comics, publishing an annual collection called LUCKY along with two fellow students. After graduation I began to work in a kitchen, learning to wield a knife by day and building my portfolio by night.

He moved to Vienna, Austria, in 2009:

“Shortly after arriving I attended Yuko Shimizu’s Summer Illustration Workshop in Venice and have since begun freelancing full-time.”

His unpublished piece ‘La Plongeuse et les Chauves-Patates’ has been selected for the American Illustration online gallery ‘THEE’. The Gallery is due to be launched in November of 2010.

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