Horror Art: Phil Mertz

BIO:

I was born in 1981 and grew up in Lancaster, PA. As a kid I watched my Uncle draw all kinds of cartoon characters which inspired me to start drawing the Ninja Turtles at a very young age. I always excelled at art in school and took as many art classes as I could. Other than art class taken in high school, I’ve never had any training.

Being a fan of horror movies my whole life I started attending horror movie conventions when I was seventeen. I got inspired to start painting a lot from horror movie subject matter after seeing a very impressionistic rendering of Leatherface on a poster at a horror convention in 1999. I started selling my work at horror movie conventions in 2004. Since then I’ve taken many challenging requests. In 2008 I had some work published in Serial Killer Magazine.

As a painter I would describe myself as an impressionist who tries to be a realist. The result is that I have a pretty raw, intense, and slightly unpolished style. I love to take requests and I normally sell my originals for around the same prices that most artists would sell their signed prints. I try to make my art affordable so that more people can own something that somebody actually put a lot of effort into.