西蒙·斯托伦哈格

西蒙·斯塔伦海格（瑞典语：Simon Stålenhag，1984年1月20日—）是瑞典艺术家、音乐家和设计师，专长未来科幻风格的数位图画创作，作品多聚焦于怀旧瑞典乡村的具有的另类历史环境 。由亚马逊公司在2020年推出的剧集《回路奇谭》即是以他的作品设定作为发想基础。

艺术创作

西蒙在斯德哥尔摩附近的乡村长大，小时因受到拉尔斯·荣松等艺术家的启发 ，他也会画些当地的风景画，是直到接触到像是罗夫·麦奎瑞和席德·米德等概念艺术家后，他才开始尝试创作带有科幻色彩的作品；一开始他只把这当作次要计划，并没有什么特别的目标。在主题上，他经常将自己的童年印象与科幻电影的场景结合在一起，合成了一个具有新未来主义倾向的传统瑞典风景画 。根据他的说法，之所以会着重在结合童年和科幻二者，是因为他认为与成年后的自己的缺少联结，而加入科幻元素的部分原因是为了吸引读者的注意力，另外则是可以增添作品的情绪 。这些想法让他在创作时可以在作为主题的巨型机器人和巨型建筑旁边加上常见的瑞典事件，像是Volvo或是Saab汽车。

书籍作品

《循环奇谭》（Tales from the Loop，2014）

《洪水过后》（Things from the Flood，2016）

《电幻国度》（The Electric State，2018）

The Labyrinth（2021）

Simon Stålenhag (born 20 January 1984) is a Swedish artist, musician, and designer specialising in retro-futuristic digital art. His work primarily focuses on nostalgic Swedish and American countryside environments, with retro sci-fi elements.

The settings of his artwork formed the basis for the 2020 Amazon television drama series Tales from the Loop. His graphic novel The Electric State was adapted into the 2025 Netflix film The Electric State.

Artwork

Stålenhag grew up in Mälaröarna, a rural area near Stockholm, and began illustrating local landscapes at a young age. He was inspired by different artists, including Lars Jonsson. Stålenhag experimented with science fiction artwork after discovering concept artists such as Ralph McQuarrie and Syd Mead. Initially, this body of work was done as a side project, without any planning behind it. Thematically, his work often combines his childhood with themes from sci-fi movies, resulting in a typical Swedish landscape with a retrofuturistic bent. According to Stålenhag, this focus originates from his perceived lack of connection with adulthood, with the science fiction elements being added in part to draw audience attention and partly to influence the work's mood. These ideas result in a body of work that can feature giant robots and megastructures alongside regular Swedish items like Volvo and Saab vehicles.

As his work has evolved, Stålenhag has created a backstory for it, focused around a governmental underground facility. In parallel with the real-life decline of the Swedish welfare state, large machines slowly fail, and the eventual result of this remains a mystery. In a 2013 interview with The Verge, Stålenhag said, "The only difference in the world of my art and our world is that... ever since the early 20th century, attitudes and budgets were much more in favour of science and technology."

Outside of his usual canon, Stålenhag also drew 28 pictures of dinosaurs for the Swedish Museum of Natural History's prehistoric exhibits after he rediscovered his childhood interest in the creatures, and contacted the museum to see if he could do anything. In 2016, he followed this with pictures of hypothetical results of a rising ocean under climate change for Stockholm University's Resilience Centre. He also did some promotional artwork for the sci-fi video game No Man's Sky.

Stålenhag uses a Wacom tablet and computer for his work, which is designed to resemble oil painting. Initially, he attempted to use various physical media to mimic a more traditional style, including gouache. Even after switching to digital methods, he has stated that he puts "a lot of effort into making the digital brushes behave naturally and preserve a certain amount of 'handwriting' in the brush strokes". The majority of his work is based on pre-existing photographs that he takes; these are then used as a starting point for a number of rough sketches before the final work is completed.

Books

Most of Stålenhag's artwork was initially available online, before later being released for sale as prints. Since then, it has been turned into two narrative art books: Tales from the Loop (Ur Varselklotet in Swedish) in 2014 and Things from the Flood (Flodskörden in Swedish) in 2016. Both focus on the construction of a supermassive particle accelerator called the Loop.

Stålenhag covered the western United States in a third art book, The Electric State, which was crowdfunded via Kickstarter. It is centered around a teenage girl and her robotic companion traversing the fictional state of Pacifica in an attempt to find her long-lost younger brother. Simon & Schuster published the UK edition in September 2018, and Skybound Books published a North American edition the following month. The Electric State (the Simon & Schuster edition) was one out of six finalists for the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2019. Also in 2019, the Skybound edition was shortlisted for the Art Book category of the Locus Award.