A few years back, Canadian animator and artist Jean Francois Painchaud, a.k.a. Phazed, found his psychedelic erotic artwork banned on Facebook. As one might imagine in the social media age, the ban ultimately worked in Painchaud's favor. After decrying censorship, he began attracting droves of followers on Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram. While the psychedelic erotica brought him a much wider audience, it's not the only trick up the illustrator's sleeve. Painchaud also makes trippy non-erotic artworks, where there is a similar emphasis on color, psychedelia and girls. But, these non-erotic works also veer into science fiction and fantasy, with Painchaud going on sci-fi adventures with his cat, or third eyes opening on a girl's head.
Painchaud tells Creators that erotic artwork was always something he did for fun. Typically, he moves between erotic and non-erotic works, depending on his mood, and when not working full-time at an animation studio, Painchaud also dabbles in electronic music.
Painchaud says that the erotic works came about because he thought he could tap into sexual energy that had been left unused. He also felt that there was a bit of a void in erotic art. The stuff he was seeing was wild and exaggerated, but from his perspective it was expressing neither love nor affection. Painchaud wanted to do the opposite: give the work emotion, while suffusing it with psychedelic color and patterns, most notably with GIFs.
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