Argus Dorian was born under the communist regime of Poland, in a picturesque town named Opole.
People say that experience is a virtue and if that’s the case, Argus has plenty. He has been working since 2017 with well-known photographers, professional models and metal bands from all around the world, within the very first year of his spiritual and creative rebirth. After over 20 years of experience in Graphic design, Photoshop and Illustrator, the Dark Cyberpunk Artist has achieved to create a Post-Apocalyptic story based on his own vision about the world’s continuous and unstoppable distraction.
The cornerstone of his story is the fact that we are heading towards an endless pit of catastrophe simply by overload our planet with garbage and toxic waste, creating new viruses just to observe them till we finally release them to the world with no regret or remorse. Unfortunately, this has been happening for many many years. The repeated history of the fallacies of science, gave him the inspiration to do something about it, besides his personal effort to make a drastic change as much as he can.
He made his life mission to awake people by presenting his creations in a unique way, in order to create the Decaydead Nation movement. There is a whole ideology behind these two words combined, that most people tend to misunderstand as they only hear the dark side of its meaning. The Decaydead Nation is parted of people who are trying to make a change not by using nice and easy words but by using their raw creativity in order to disturb and make an impression. Standing out was never easy, as Argus has stated many times before. Pretty art, even tho is much more accepted, has never brought any results. The Decaydead nation is sacrificing time, energy and their ‘good name’ on the altar of drastic change. If that is not bravery, I don’t know what is.
Argus has a policy of not using AI generated art/parts in any way or form due to his strong belief that art comes from the depths of a soul and it can only be fully recognised, seen and absorbed only by another soul. Guided by his Muse Revna, the Dark artist has created original characters as heroes or villains while at the same time he lets us choose who is who. In a world that has been designed to be separated in two fields, the rich and powerful against the poor and expendables ones, Argus confirms that even on the very edge of destruction..this pyramid will never change. Humanity needs leaders to survive and faction but the courage to take responsibility hangs from those who use math and results in favour of the few yet important.
We hear people all the time, asking why does God allow all these horrible things to take place on earth. Argus has the answer to this question by impersonating the Divine forces and their interactions with the human race.
His vision inspired other artists as well, to ‘never give up on their dreams‘ as this was and always will be Argus’s main message to the world, right next to the ‘Wake up before its too late‘ motto.
Once the curtains of this figurative story close and the masks fall off… Argus’s mask will be the one to stay on put…
Many moons ago, when I was six years old, my father introduced me for the first time to the real face of humanity, in a brutal way some might say but the thing is that for me it was actually very helpful. You see, children will not believe what you have to say but what they see happening around them and my father was aware of this truth. He took my hand and guided my fragile childish mind throughout space and time by asking me to watch a movie with him which called ‘The Wall’, created by Pink Floyd. Keep in mind that my father was a very passionate man. Music was the best way for him to express himself. He loved Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Wishbone Ash and many more that I was lucky enough to grow up listening to as well. I’m sure you can imagine the excitement when he told me that one of our favourites bands had made a whole movie! I couldn’t wait to watch it.
and i did…
Now, if you were there you’d either laugh or cry once you’d see my faces when dreams were falling apart and my childish idea of the world to be completely different. my father explained to me the symbolism laying behind the images… the lyrics. And then it hit me. That was the moment of realisation.. I knew nothing about the world. Reality had nothing to do with how i used to see things. The people in this movie were mean and sick in the head. Is that my future? Is that how teachers look like under their skin? It cannot be. I had to do something about it since it felt like I was partly responsible, as much as everyone else is, for the future of our planet… and since then i never stopped trying to be a better human being.
But of course! My father’s record’s covers were always available for me to gather as mush information as i could in order to understand a bit better. It’s funny how everything you need to know is right next to you when you need them the most… even things you wouldn’t bother to notice before. Little meaningless things can be treasure for someone who knows where to look.
My passion with art was born right there. To be completely honest it wasn’t that hard for me to manage to find my way into my creativity because my blood line was full of artists like my mother and my grandpa for example. Now, my time has come to follow their lead and make them proud but most importantly I had to make my dream come true and finally change the world.
Two years passed by since then and just like every beginning, mine wasn’t easy. I was eight years old when we moved from Poland and immigrated to Greece, a country my parents loved at first sight. Maybe because of its rich history, the museums, the unbelievable beauty it holds. Unfortunately for me it wasn’t that pleasant of an experience. In Greece I faced racism for the first time in my life because I wasn’t speaking Greek. and by that i mean.. at all. Not a single word.
In the beginning, I was secluded to myself. The fact that I had zero friends actually gave me the opportunity to expand my knowledge on art, music and poetry even if I couldn’t see it at first. The rewards didn’t take much time to appear. Winning many competitions cheered me up and at the same time, it made me popular at school.
At the age of 10 my life was all about heavy metal, drawing ancient statues, traditional art and painting and of course learning how to replicate every Iron Maiden cover! it was and still is one of my favorite bands.
On the way to enroll in the school of fine arts in Athens. little did i know, life had a different plan for me so i ended up studying Art and Graphic Design. Not bad, not bad at all. Graduating first with highest grades and a scholarship was the ticket to instantly start working in an advertising company making photo manipulations for fashion magazines.
The fun didn’t last long, especially when the financial crisis started in Greece in 2009 and it was impossible for me to get another job since the unemployment had reached enormous numbers. My personal artworks were not acceptable enough for the Greeks to see and support. Satanist, evil, disturbing were just a few of the many comments I was getting from people who didn’t know me and wouldn’t even try to understand my personal perspective. many of my clients saw my art on Deviant Art and stopped working with me or worst, made complains to the company I was working for, to fire me.. I was officially labeled as a psychopath, a satanist with no position what so ever in the mainstream advertising company. It was impossible for me to comprehend such hate and leaving my job was not an option since the crisis.
I only had one choice, to keep my art private… not an easy decision for me to make. The urge to go against everyone’s beliefs and do my own thing, in my own way was still burning inside. My very existence was craving for revolution.
What a relief to know that there are people with your mindset. This piece of knowledge can give you the courage to keep on going, keep on trying till the suns goes cold. HR Giger, Luis Royo and Dave McKean will always have a special place in my heart. Without them even knowing it, they played the most important role in my artworks. Brilliant minds, special and unique. Every day, after work, you’d see me in my office drawing knowing that I cant publish any of it! Take a moment to imagine having a mouth and not being able to speak.
Loosing my parents at young age, costed me more than I can put in words. It’s only logical after all. Besides the pain of the loss, the unbearable grief..it cost me my reality. What do i mean by that?… Let’s see.
Life is precious. a unique gift given to you from the ultimate energetic field, the source, sculpted by the dreams of never-seen creatures. You get to name them as you wish.
You know how hard it is to be you? The uncontrollable mind always overthinking and overreacting. the anxiety? The stress? Traumas?.. All the above are nothing but keys to this wonderland in the sky, or the ground or wherever you want to put it. What an amazing thing, to be you. What an experience to be alive.
The message I got the day I lost the most precious people in my life, is that I needed to get rid of toxicity. I wish you were there to see their faces when I showed them the way out of my life. I had to focus on my art now creating my alter ego. In other words, the best version of myself. With no further due, I had the story in my mind already.
I’m going to write about the consequences of earth’s pollution! My experience from working in Greenpeace was the cornerstone among others. Now i have the topic.. With a dark twist combined with my style and boom! The dark vision has been designed!
First of all, in my first chapter ‘pollution’ you’ll see children with toxic masks trying to awake people’s minds about our future by sending them survival messages. Secondly, ‘the changing’ where people’s DNA started to transform due to pollution, making people act like bloodthirsty beasts.. leading us to the next chapter ‘hunters’. that’s where people were born in the toxicity, the sickness around earth. They hunt and kill human beings for enjoyment.
A whole dystopian world infected with monsters, hunters, survivors, experiments hidden underground in secrete facilities by the almighty Elite, the most powerful humans on earth. And of course, every dark story has its bright parts so i created the ‘assassins’. I wont tell you more about them because I deeply believe that you’ll find parts of yourself in them. at least, some of you. Even parts that you don’t want to see in you. That’s fine too.. Everything and everyone is acceptable and safe in my world.
To sum up, my whole story’s purpose is to send environmental messages about pollution, destruction of out planet earth, children dying from starvation, extinction of species, experiments on animals and people and so much more.
That illustrated story triggered one of my followers on Instagram, Johnny, to contact me on the summer of 2019, sharing with me his ideas. We decided to take my story into a new darker road by writing a book where the world is ending so a new darker one could take place. You see… it was hard for me to believe that things would ever get better in our lives. My inner traumas were showing and I used them all. Such a pessimistic way of thinking, you might say and you are not wrong. I chose to focus on our brainstorm and the opportunity to combine our passion for visual artists, painters and horror movies to make a book, like a love letter to every single dark soul out there. Now all we needed to find is how to end this world and the idea came out of nowhere! A virus! Little did we know that this would be our actual future since the pandemic happened months later.
Yes, Dark Art can be quite shocking sometimes but we have to see beneath the surface. To look closer to a picture, in depth. The secret is to not use your eyes… try to look at my creations as screams for help. As warnings.
Thank you all for being part of my journey and I hope you will stay till the end… of my story.
Be Decaydead! Darkness United. – Argus Dorian
