Tanner Valant is a 19-year-old emerging artist known for his large-scale colored pencil drawings, which are heavily influenced by surrealism. Currently studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Tanner has garnered significant attention through his social media presence, where his content averages millions of views per video. This exposure has allowed him to reach over 40 million people, connecting with influential figures, collectors, and fans worldwide.

In my work, I explore the complex personalities and emotions found in humanity. As people, we experience beautiful, spiritual, pure moments where we can express love, gratitude, and affection to others and the world around us. On the other hand, we can stray from this positive path, lose our true selves, and become out of tune with life and the universe. This results in isolation and doubt, which represent the more ominous side of humanity. People sway between these moments of existence, and I aim to capture those transitions within my art. I use a series of motifs I've developed through experimentation to represent this phenomenon. The dark monochromatic representations in my work such as hands, abstract shapes, and figures represent the multifaceted sides of humanity. These representations are uniquely beautiful and yet mysterious with their shadows and hints at what lies underneath. To further these ideas, I combine other aspects found in nature along with human details to either emphasize or show contrast within the work. With the culmination of all these elements, a duality shows the ebb and flow between states of existence.