Jeremy Fenske Turns Ordinary Streets and Rooms into Cinematic Paintings Using Light, Color, and Simple Shapes

# Places

Jeremy Fenske is a Los Angeles–area concept artist, art director, and visual-development artist who has worked more than 15 years in AAA games. His credits include The Elder Scrolls Online, Destiny 2, and Palia, and he is currently listed as a principal concept artist at Squanch Games. That studio experience shows in the clarity and narrative discipline of his personal paintings.

# Reducing to Essentials

Fenske's personal work usually starts with familiar, everyday places: a neighborhood street, a dense city block, a shoreline, a roadside building, or a quiet interior. Instead of trying to render every physical detail, he focuses on a location's light, color, atmosphere, and visual rhythm. The goal is not photographic precision but a readable, cinematic mood.

This method involves deliberate reduction. Dense visual information gets simplified into large shapes, controlled color palettes, and directional light. That reduction makes a quick, legible painting where the viewer understands time of day, weather, and emotional tone without needing many details.

# Digital Plein-Air and the MapCrunch Exercise

Fenske approaches some pieces like digital plein-air sketches. He uses random Street View locations found through MapCrunch as starting points. The randomness forces him to interpret unfamiliar, often cluttered scenes quickly. Treating those finds as visual exercises keeps the focus on observation—how light falls, what colors anchor a composition, which shapes define the scene—rather than slavish copying of photographic detail.

This practice serves two purposes: it sharpens the artist's ability to spot the visual essentials in any scene, and it trains speed. Those skills transfer back to development art for games, where rapid, communicative concept work is valuable.

# Visual Techniques You Can Notice

• Light as structure: Rather than relying on line work, Fenske often uses beams, backlight, or strong directional light to create depth and lead the eye.
• Color economy: Limited palettes or bold color contrasts define mood and separate planes in the image.
• Simple geometry: Large, readable shapes stand in for complex detail—rooftops, walls, and vehicles become compositional blocks.
• Atmosphere and rhythm: Repetition of forms and subtle value shifts create a cadence across the image, giving it a cinematic pulse.

# Designers

For concept artists and visual developers, the ability to communicate a mood quickly is essential. Fenske's work demonstrates how stripping a scene down to its visual fundamentals makes that communication immediate. The approach also helps photographers, illustrators, and designers who want to convert raw, chaotic references into controlled visuals.

# Where to See More

Fenske shares these exercises and finished pieces on social platforms such as Instagram. His portfolio practice—mixing studio-quality concept thinking with quick, observational studies—shows a repeatable way to improve visual storytelling without lengthy setups or complicated references.

# Practical Takeaways

• Use random or mundane references to force fresh compositions. Map-based randomness prevents overfamiliarity with a subject.
• Prioritize light and color over surface detail when you need to convey mood fast.
• Reduce forms into simple shapes to speed up composition and readability.
• Treat quick studies like a training tool: the sharper your observation, the stronger your finished work will read.