Bio

Erick De La Vega  is an American fine artist, photographer, and award-winning special makeup effects artist whose career spans more than three decades in the film, television, and fine art worlds. Drawing from over 30 years of experience creating creatures, characters, and visual effects for some of Hollywood's most recognizable productions, De La Vega has developed a distinctive artistic voice that bridges cinematic realism with the dark realms of fantasy and horror.

Throughout his career, Erick has contributed to numerous feature films and television productions, including Thor, Real Steel, Cowboys & Aliens, Jeepers Creepers I & II, Blade II, StarTrek Into The Darkness, Guardians Of The Galaxy II, Hellraiser 2022, and Batman: Dead End, as well as the cult-classic television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel & The Walking Dead, & Interview With A Vampire. His extensive work in special effects makeup and creature design has profoundly influenced his fine art practice, informing the remarkable realism, atmosphere, and technical precision that characterize his paintings.

Formally trained at the New World School of the Arts in Miami and the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, De La Vega works primarily in airbrush acrylics, creating meticulously rendered imagery that explores the intersection of beauty, fear, faith, and mortality. His artistic influences range from the visionary fantasy worlds of Frank Frazetta and Wayne Barlowe to the biomechanical nightmares of H.R. Giger. Equally influential are the experiences of his Catholic upbringing and a lifelong fascination with demons, folklore, the undead, and the darker corners of human imagination. Erick De La Vega's paintings inhabit a realm that feels both otherworldly and unsettlingly familiar. Through haunting compositions and masterful realism, he invites viewers into shadowed landscapes populated by spectral figures, infernal beings, and mythic creatures. His work confronts themes of spirituality, temptation, mortality, and transformation, revealing a horrific beauty that lingers long after the viewer has looked away.

His artwork has been featured in numerous gallery exhibitions, including CONJOINED 5 at Copro Gallery, The Art of Erick De La Vega & Friends at Lethal Amounts Gallery, Necropolis at The Congregation Gallery, Voodoo Hoodoo & Santeria at The Congregation Gallery, Demons at Lethal Amounts Gallery, and a solo exhibition at Hyaena Gallery, among many others. Today, Erick De La Vega continues to create fine art that merges technical mastery with dark imagination, producing works that are both fearsomely compelling and deeply evocative.