Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The best creative work is fed by unexpected influences, and for me, those sources of inspiration stretch far beyond the art world. Two major influences stand out: nature and dreams—one rooted in reality, the other in the subconscious.
Nature: Beauty, Horror, and Endless Patterns
Nature is the obvious one. It’s impossible not to be inspired by it when you start looking closely. The natural world is full of contradictions—stunning beauty mixed with absolute horror. A bird of paradise performing an intricate mating dance is as fascinating as a parasitic wasp injecting its eggs into an unsuspecting host. There’s something poetic about that duality.
Beyond individual creatures, the patterns in nature are a constant source of inspiration. The spiral of a nautilus shell, the branching of trees, the ripple effects in water—these organic designs sneak into my work, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unconsciously. My love of op art and geometric patterns isn’t separate from my love of nature; it’s an extension of it. The way a zebra’s stripes create optical illusions or how a school of fish moves in mesmerising synchronisation—these are all forms of natural op art.
Dreams: My Personal Surrealist Playground
If nature influences the structure of my work, dreams fuel its surrealism. Since I started documenting my dreams in a visual dream journal, they’ve become an endless well of ideas. Dreams don’t care about logic. They combine the familiar with the bizarre, creating scenes that feel both deeply personal and utterly strange.
To bring these surreal visions to life, I’ve embraced AI as a tool—not to replace creativity, but to expand it. AI helps me sketch out dream imagery that my waking mind struggles to translate. It’s like having a collaborator that pulls subconscious fragments into something tangible. The results are often eerie, sometimes hilarious, but always intriguing.
Bridging the Two Worlds
Nature and dreams might seem like opposite forces—one governed by physical laws, the other by the unpredictable subconscious. But for me, they’re intertwined. Nature itself is often dreamlike, full of creatures and landscapes that feel almost too strange to be real. Meanwhile, dreams frequently pull from nature, distorting it into something new. My art sits in the middle, trying to capture that intersection.
Ultimately, I don’t separate these influences from my work—they are my work. Whether I’m illustrating an uncommon animal in a patterned world or translating a dream into something visual, I’m always chasing that mix of reality and the surreal.
Kids Book Illustrator Andy C Marshall 