Published June 1, 2021

Interview with Shoutout Los Angeles

We had the good fortune of connecting with Argus Dorian and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Q. Hi Argus, what do you want people to remember about you?

Interesting question. The story in my mind was to create a storyline about the consequences of Earth’s pollution, since for some years I was working with Greenpeace and environment and nature is one of my passions, but with a dark twist combined with my style.

I designed a dark vision of the wrong path that we take and might lead us to our distraction. The story started with the chapter “Pollution” basically showing myself and some children with toxic masks trying to awake people to think about our future sending survival messages.

The next chapter was “The Changing” were people’s DNA started to transform due the pollution and making people act like beasts, killing one another leading us to the next chapter “Hunters”. People born from the toxicity of the environment who hunt and kill for enjoyment. I had this whole dystopian world created in my mind with monsters, survivors and a team of the Elite, the powerful ones, who were hidden in underground facilities making experiments to create a new generation of people that can survive on the toxic surface and fight the hunters. The idea of “Assassins” was just created.

So basically my whole art was based on a story, sending environmental messages about pollution, destruction of the planet, children dying from starvation, toxic environment, extinction and experiments on animals, people and more. That illustrated story was the trigger for a follower of mine on Instagram, Johnny to contact me on the summer of 2019, telling me his dark ideas.

We started talking and taking my story into a new darker road, more horrific, more disturbed. We decided to write a book and we wanted to end the world so a new darker one would be born. We were brainstorming and trying to take the story to the next level, combining our passion for visual artists, painters and horror movies. We wanted the book to have every little detail and be a love letter to all the dark souls out there so all we needed was to find how the end of times would come…

And the idea just came! From a virus! Little did we know that this would be our real future since the pandemic happened months later.

Since my book I create art based on this dark vision of our future. More graphic, more extreme, more dark.

I work with models from all around the world making professional manipulations always based on my story and trying to send a message to awaken people from the upcoming disaster, that we have to change and wake up, to look for what really matters in our lives.

Yes, Dark Art is shocking sometimes but we have to see beneath the surface. To look closer to a picture, in depth. There’s more to the eye can see. As more people started to embrace my art I got banned and my designs kept hidden from the censorship of social media platforms.

In October 2020 I deleted all my art from Instagram to update it and post it in the correct order of the story and the development of the characters. Meanwhile I’m working on a video game and a movie script based on my book and the parallel stories of my characters.

The fire in me burns stronger day by day since finding myself and finding a new whole world of creativity.

Thank you all for being part of my journey and I hope you will stay till the end… of my story.

Q. Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.

The biggest problem, when I start my dark art, but I worked in the advertising industry as a graphic designer, was that people weren’t and still don’t accept dark art and are so easy to add labels and make you feel like a pariah. “Satanist”, “evil”, “disturbed”, those were a few comments from people who didn’t know me and saw some of me early work and that was a problem for me.

Many of my clients saw my art on Deviant Art and stopped working with me or made complains to the company I was working. They couldn’t see beyond my art and they were so eager to put labels, demanding from the company I was working to, to expel me, fire me.

I was a “psychopath”, a “Satanist” to them and all the hateful labels you can imagine and I had no position in a mainstream advertising company.

It was a crazy situation and I couldn’t comprehend it.. I couldn’t risk to loose my job, so I started designing my art only for myself, kept it private, not letting anyone see it.

But something inside me was still burning, a flame of creativity that my job couldn’t satisfy. I was always in love with art by HR Giger, Luis Royo and Dave McKean and I was drawing almost every day after work and I couldn’t publish anything because of the nature of my art and the problems and controversy it had created so far.

Unfortunately the problems I had with clients at work who didn’t want to work with an “evil” and “disturbed” person kept me hidden for almost 10 years.

When I lost both of my parents at young age, I realised that life is too short for you, for me for anyone to not to be who we are and not to do what we love to do.

We have to be real, we have to be ourselves, we just have to be!

I started building a wall around me and getting rid of, of all the toxic people who kept me down creatively all these years. They were just a waste of time and a barrier between me and my dreams. I focused on my own art again and started creating my alter ego. An alter ego that would be the real me as an artist. And then I started my art journey.

Q. Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.

Due to my nature, I am not into going out to restaurants, etc.. I am more the “walk in the forest” guy, or take a bike and ride… So I guess I would do the same if someone came to visit me.. walk her/him to death! lol!

Q. The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?

I want personally thank all the people that worked with me and supported me during all those years. It’s not only one person, but many that I want to thank for believing in my art, trusting me, spent hours in photoshootings to provide me with amazing photos to create my art.

Originally Published at ShoutOut LA here

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