Miranda Meeks is a professional illustrator known for her haunting and ethereal digital illustrations. The primary focus of her work centers around the idea that beauty and darkness can weave together to form an intriguing narrative. She captures moments of stillness and silence, often evoking a melancholic mood or a feeling of subtle tension. Depicting women with strength and power is a recurring theme, as she strives to present images that help to empower women and girls to feel that same sense of strength. Soft overcast lighting, fluid elements, and delicate gradients are also featured prominently in her work, which intensifies the atmosphere of otherworldliness and solitude.
Inspired by darker films from directors such as Tim Burton and M. Night Shyamalan, Miranda seeks outside sources of creativity which convey similar themes of darkness and soft beauty. In elementary school, she discovered the picture book The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg. The stories which accompanied the enigmatic pictures influenced her perception of how stories can be told, and continue to influence her work today. She also finds inspiration from other fields like graphic design and fine art, which she threads back into her own work.
Miranda graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Arts and an emphasis in Illustration. Her work has been recognized in annual competition publications like Spectrum and American Illustration, as well as nominated for multiple Chesley Awards. She won the Rising Star award in 2018, an award created by Colin and Kristine Poole to celebrate the efforts of artists early in their career who show promise and potential. Her freelance work focuses primarily on book covers, usually for a YA audience.
She currently works from her home in Utah where she lives with her husband and two small children.