Kristoffer Zetterstrand, “Skull on fire” (Sweden) 2010
“Skull on fire”
Kristoffer Zetterstrand is a Swedish digital artist who made “Skull on fire” in 2010, for the video
game Minecraft. Zetterstrand studied art at the Royal University college of fine arts in
Stockholm. He is known for his semi-surreal, oil painting-like, video game inspired digital works.
For all of his artworks, he first plans out his painting in a digital 3D space on a computer. He
maps out all his components in real space and time, and then recreates the desired angle or
angles in an oil paint style. Zetterstrands brother-in-law is the creator of Minecraft, Marcus
Persson (commonly referred to as Notch). Some time in early 2010, Notch had taken
(presumably with Zetterstrands permission) 16 of Zetterstrands previous artworks; pixelated
them, and then added them to his game Minecraft as in game paintings. Then later that year
Zetterstrand released this painting which incorporates scenes from Minecraft. This painting was
also later added to the game, and is my personal favorite of all.
The artwork looks as if it was hand painted with what looks to be oil paint, but was actually
made digitally. The artwork is surrounded with a “painted on” black wooden picture frame. In the
foreground there is a photorealistic skull with pixelated flames running through it, sitting on the
edge of a piece of pixelated grass. The flat pixel flames phase in and out of the skull with no
regard to physics, and most of the flames are running through the skull's scalp. The fire is
casting a small shadow of the skull on the piece of grass. Now behind the skull, on the skull's
right but to our left there is a square moon that looks over a blocky mountain and landscape.
This landscape is taken straight from a world in Minecraft.
This artwork gives me a sense of mystery, power, and emphasis. It almost has a baroque
quality to it, with the soft dark background of the night contrasting with the sharp bright flames
on the skull. This work also has surrealist qualities to it. A photorealistic skull should not belong
in Minecraft yet the flames are cutting in and out of it as if it was really in the game.
Zetterstrand, Kristoffer “https://zetterstrand.com” June 22, 2001
Solar sands “Who Made the Minecraft Paintings and What Do They Say About the Game?”
Youtube, Nov 1, 2019
Stclair, Adrian “Videogame Art – Kristoffer Zetterstrand” podcast, Agora digital art. May 30, 2021
