Artist Turns Classic Works of Art Into 8-Bit Masterpieces

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By Andrea Romano2014-05-01 00:45:58 UTC

Imagine if your favorite arcade games could hang in an art gallery.

Artist Adam Lister combines the art world with the video game world by taking famous paintings and images from pop culture and painting them as 8-bit graphics. Lister begins with familiar pieces like Van Gogh's Starry Night or da Vinci's The Last Supper and transforms them into flat, angular shapes — all in stunning works of watercolor.

"These pictures are like puzzles, carefully taken apart and then pieced back together to reveal the subject. By referencing classical works of art, and nostalgic scenes and objects, I find these works to be transformations of images that have a collective familiarity," Lister wrote to Mashable.

It is hard to believe how anyone can bring Super Mario or Legend of Zelda together with Van Gogh or Seurat, but Lister finds a way to beautifully blend art with digital in each 8-bit creation. "These works were inspired by my love for geometric abstraction, color field painting, and old school digital graphics."

Along with his classically inspired works, Lister also created 8-bit paintings inspired by pop culture, such as television and movies like Star Wars , Star Trek and famous TV painting icon Bob Ross. All of Lister's work can viewed on his gallery's website.