Pete Neonakis
Digital artist Pete Neonakis brings his unique and captivating visual exploration of music icons past and present to the broad spectrum of artists and styles represented by the Highlands Art Collective.
Pete creates photo-realistic imaginings of famed musical artists as grade school age children, incorporating recognizable elements of their adult personas. Titling his imaginative series "Children of Legend", Pete has amassed an audience of over 50,000 followers online.
It's easy to see why. Music lovers of all kinds will find artists of interest in Children of Legend, which spans all genres and generations of musicians from early Country, Blues, Rock 'n Roll and Jazz to Reggae, Global and contemporary Rock, Pop, Punk and all points in between.
With a never-ending supply of music icons old, current and constantly emerging, Pete Neonakis and Children of Legend stand to bring joy and wonder to art and music lovers for generations to come.
He sees music icons as they emerge
A highly imaginative and multi-talented artist, Pete Neonakis fuses his love of music and those who create it into a distinctive and intriguing series of photo images to give us a look at what iconic musical artists might have looked like as children when fused with the persona they developed in their careers.
His images provide an entirely new way to examine the personality each artist became later in life and what it might have looked like in their pre-teen years. “To see a musical icon like David Bowie, James Brown, Janis Joplin or Miles Davis in their fully formed persona evoked as a 9 year-old is simply stunning. There’s no other word for it,” states Ian McIlvaine, Executive Director of the Highlands Art Collective. “There’s nothing else like it. And it appeals to music and art lovers of all kinds because Pete’s musical interest is massively broad and deep” he concludes. Pete asserts, “This project breathes new life into timeless legacies. It invites the viewer to see the convergence of art and music in a new way that sparks both familiarity and wonder”.
It’s the marriage of the familiar and the mysterious that makes Pete’s photo manipulations both intriguing and delightful. “Children of Legend” is an ongoing project that to date has spanned a broad spectrum of musical icons from decades past and present, and across all musical genres. From Classic Rock (Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Elton John) to Country (Woody Guthrie, Johnny Cash) to Jazz (Charles Mingus, Louis Armstrong) to Pop and Hip-Hop (Jay Kay, Pharrell Williams) to World sounds (Miriam Makeba, Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, Peter Tosh) and more. “We simply could not be more excited to have Pete affiliated with us,” McIlvaine states.
