Brian Serway’s Dark Art of Appalachia and Cryptids

Brian Serway makes incredibly cool art rooted in American folklore and legends from the Appalachian region he calls home. Animal spirits with glowing eyes, spooky starlit twilights in dense woods, cryptids and wayward howling aliens — this is the horror that comes knocking on the rickety door of your remote cabin in the dead of night. We discovered Brian’s work on social media (Instagram and Twitter) and learned more about him on his official BrianSerway.com site. We needed to know more, and thus collared him for an interview:

HEAVY METAL: Can you tell us how your geographical surroundings and formative interests may have brought you to this subject matter? Did you grow up interested in local lore, science fiction, and the supernatural?

BRIAN SERWAY: Appalachia as a cultural region has always fascinated me; my mom’s side is all from the coal mining hollers of West Virginia so I grew up enchanted by tales of haunted haints, local cryptids, and local folklore. When I was in grade school, a buddy of mine and I were walking through a large corn field in southwest Virginia and saw a blinding ray of light raise up and shoot into the sky; from that moment on I was fascinated by the possibility of extraterrestrials and began drawing a bunch of comics revolving around a fictional hero I created. That type of stuff really had a profound effect on me in my formative years.

HM: What are some favorite folklore legends or cryptids you like to draw, or would like to someday?

BS: My Nana grew up near Point Pleasant, WV so I heard tales about Mothman from a very young age. He naturally became my favorite cryptid because of his regional proximity and just the dense, intriguing lore surrounding his sightings. I would love to eventually draw the Fresno Nightrawler and the Glouchester sea serpent!

HM: How about influences — are there any artists you grew up emulating or even today still look to for inspiration?

BS: Oh man, so many! This doesn’t even begin to put a dent in it, but some of my favorite artists growing up (and still to this day) were Alex Pardee, Caitlin Hackett, Aron Wiesnfeld, Dan Hillier, Pat Perry, Sophie Lecuyer, Laughing Loone, and Sam Wolfe Connelly.

HM: You’ve portrayed different animals, scenes, etc and it seems like there’s either a starry night sky above them or there are stars actually contained within them (or both). What’s the significance of this recurring element of stars?

BS: This is going to sound corny as all hell but really I think it’s just my subconscious fascination with all living things being made of starstuff. Suns are these imperceivable large celestial bodies and yet their enriched guts exist in all of us; there’s something about that primordial connectivity that is somehow comforting and bone-chilling to me, and I think that’s the feeling I try to evoke in all my work. The nocturnal aspects simply come from illustrating that and a sense of wonder in the natural world and how it carries on under darkness.

HM: Which brings us to astrology: Hoax or bullshit? Explain. Just kidding, but how do your straight-up astrological images, which date back to another mythology from another continent, connect with your Appalachian subjects?

BS: Haha, ask me five years ago and I would have definitively said the latter. My undergraduate degree is in philosophy so I am eternally a skeptic of pretty much anything but I am infinitely curious in everything. My wife dabbles in a lot of practical astrology and she has thoroughly challenged my conceptions of it by showing me so many eerie cosmic coincidences. That type of stuff really does pique my intrigue and I do think there is a lot worth exploring there.

HM: What is your process, in terms of materials and artistic technique? And what sort of products based on your art do you sell? (Do you sell the originals as well?)

BS: I typically do a few rough sketches to get the form and contours the way I want them before diving in with bold graphite. Most of my work is a combination of pencil, water-soluble graphite, and some very precise erasing. It can get pretty messy with all the smudging and little eraser shavings but I rely on a lot of layering. Most of my pieces start out with a simple concept that often evolves into something more vast and multifaceted. I do all of my own printwork in house and run my own online store where I sell those as well as stickers, enamel pins, and yes a lot of my originals — though I do save some of them for future gallery shows.

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