Casey Jex Smith (b.1976) creates intricate and fantastical landscape drawings with pen, graphite, and colored pencil. He constructs his environments with a superior force in mind, one that manipulates the human figure via sensual pleasures and patterns to create meaning. Smith’s elaborate visual style draws from the study of master printmakers, Persian Miniature painting, Dungeons & Dragons manuals, Where’s Waldo, and indie comics, borrowing compositional structures from role-play games, Architectural Digest spreads, pleasure gardens, and Mormon temple rituals. Having grown up as a Mormon in the conservative state of Utah, Smith ultimately creates his wondrously imagined worlds as a way to escape.