ABOUT – Hal Brentano

hi. i’m hal brentano (they/them). i’m a visual artist and storyteller, based in portland, oregon. i grew up in the rainforests of southeast alaska with a sketchbook and a pen. my artwork branches across mediums (mainly digital but also acrylic and gouache paint, ink, and charcoal). i’m inspired by the resilience of nature in the face of pollution, destruction, and fragmentation. i create atmospheric environments that blend the natural and the constructed. in my long-form fiction, i sit with themes of trauma, marginalization, and the capacity to heal in a wounded world.

what art program do you use?

i use procreate for sketching and illustration, while most of my comics are done in clip studio paint.

is your art available for sale/commission?

thank you if you’re interested, but i do not currently have prints, originals, or commissions for sale. donate to my ko-fi and check back later <3

what’s your stance on AI?

‘artificial intelligence’ covers a lot of technology that has potential to actually improve things like cancer and wildfire detection, but the reality is that this technology has an enormous environmental cost and generative AI often relies on stolen intellectual property. creatives’ livelihoods are being threatened by the influx of low-quality, regurgitative art and writing, some of which undermine our sense of reality. that’s my ‘with all due respect, fuck AI’