Chad Clikeman graduated from the Maryland Institute, College of Art in 2004 with a BFA in Graphic Design. While attending MICA, he was interested in many art forms including Illustration, Digital Video, 3D Graphics, Screen Printing, Music Recording, and Graphic Design. His Painting 1 teacher was the one-and-only Michael Economos. Since graduating, he has had a successful career working for many notable companies in Baltimore including Ashton Design, Big Huge Games, Stanley Black & Decker, and Paradigm Press Group. He has created, developed, and maintained many brands over the years, worked on two Triple-A fantasy video game releases, and three indie smart-phone game releases. Chad has always had a fascination with man’s relationship to animals. Many of his earlier illustrative work juxtaposes man and animal in humorous awkward ways. He did a series of pieces in ocean settings depicting humans as the outsiders, while the fish all have human faces. What does it mean. I can’t remember. But it’s deep. His style has evolved as it should, but he has continued to create line-drawn compositions using micron pens of different weights. Many people have compared his illustrative style to the Adult Swim show Venture Brothers, while others have said his art would look great as tattoos. Several years ago, he took up Copic markers and later transitioned to Tomboy markers. His most recent works are all Micron ink and watercolor. Mostly, he’s glad to be drawing fish again, even if they don’t have human faces.
