You’ll never find a tom-tom, an unexploded munition, or a Louisianan license plate floating around in Dan Zvereff’s stomach, but you might in his brain. The twenty-three year old illustrator/graphic designer/photographer is as adventurous intellectually as a shark is gastronomically. He’s as well read in Dr. Seuss as in Edgar Rice Burroughs, and as influenced by the psychedelic sea in “Yellow Submarine” as by the demon-filled worlds of Hieronymus Bosch, the 15th century Flemish painter whom Carl Yung described as “the master of the monstrous…the discoverer of the unconscious.” He’ll spend an afternoon exploring the hall of bio-diversity in the American Museum of Natural History and then go home to spend the evening laughing at South Park or The Office from his couch. One morning, he wrote a children’s book. It rhymes, all twenty-six pages of it. He’s a devious prankster who for fifteen dollars will supply you with a thousand mealworms and one great idea. And those are just some the things he does to entertain himself when he’s not globe trotting.

Dan’s passport is more stamped than Carmen Sandiego’s. He doesn’t have the tastes of a shark, but his appetite is just as voracious. He feeds on new experiences, and his hunger for them is intense enough to lead him as quickly across an ocean to excavate dinosaur bones in Patagonia with a team of paleontologists as it is to skateboard in Barcelona or Tokyo with a pack of friends. It’s led him around the world and back more than a couple of times, and just a few years ago it led him across the country and away from his home, friends, and college in Portland to a job designing for Zoo York in New York City. Dan now lives in Hoboken, works freelance, and will most likely never step foot in a school again unless it’s to teach high school art in Bangkok.

Yes, he does a lot, but no matter which side of the equator or Hudson Dan is on, his art is the one place everything in his life comes together. Dan’s work builds on top of itself to create images that express trains of creative thought rather than isolated bright ideas, and his organic and exploratory creative process ensures that even his most whimsical pieces (flying whales anyone?) are revealing. To look at a piece of his work is to sneak a peek into Dan’s experience, but it’s a limited view, like looking through a keyhole into a room where some fantastical party is going on. You might not be able to tell exactly what is being celebrated, but you get a good sense of the excitement and you sure see a lot of leg.

I recently sat down with Dan and he talked about his work, his travels, and what keeps him moving. To see what he had to say click through the pages below….

Photo by David Hamzik

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