In the first week of March alone, over 20,000 pictures were uploaded to Instagram using #sunset. It’d be a fool’s errand to count how many of these posts contain an actual sunset because the fact remains that we give it a lot of attention. We know it will always arrive at the end of day but we’re ceaselessly in love with the spectacle. Perhaps a sunset brings us a sense of freedom, or – more existentially – it promises another day to get it right at the end of a bad one.

We have it especially good in Los Angeles. Our sunsets are ambrosial with streaks of pinks, purples, and gold that stretch across the sky. We’ve turned to a friend before with speechless wonder rushing through us; can you believe we get this all year round? When words fail, we take out our phones to document and preserve the feeling.

Or if you’re Keebs, you’re recreating it.

Keebs is a digital illustrator with the quintessential L.A. painter’s palette. His pastel-hued neon colors accurately depict the romantic wash over Los Angeles in its lonely hours. He is a master of sunsets, serenity, and melancholy. 

Keebs’ illustrations are impeccably detailed, painstakingly depicting wrinkles in an oversized jacket or the soft shadows under dim bar lights. He brings these details to life through neon-inspired colors. “I like combining neon with the not-so-rambunctious aspect of being out for the more mundane, chill vibe,” he said. Indeed, much of Keebs’ artwork brings a slice-of-life candor into otherwise forgettable moments. There’s vibrancy in the normalcy of waiting at bus stops, eating alone, or opening a beer with friends at your local watering hole.

Keebs – real name John Lee – finds a lot of inspiration from the several years he lived in South Korea where the dark nights are lit up by neon. When the sun sets, Seoul keeps bustling. “Everybody is out at night,” he observed. “I don’t know what it is about Korean culture, but everyone stays up late, even until 6 AM.”

Nowadays, Lee lives in Koreatown, Los Angeles, where he finds some similarities with what he had experienced abroad. The neighborhood offers a lot at night for anyone looking to be outside, whether it be dancing to throwback hip-hop or enjoying a burger for one. There’s comfort in the blunted late-night glow that emanates from all of Koreatown’s establishments. 

“At night, it’s not always people just out partying,” Lee said. “Some people are out just chilling, and from that, you feel a kind of sense of loneliness too.”

Lee’s most-liked illustrations on Instagram depict a sense of being together, alone. One of his most popular works of art features three friends on a rooftop quietly overlooking the sunset, beers in hand. The scene is familiar; many of us have basked in the perfection of a late summer afternoon when sadness swirls around the realization of it being over soon. It is quite L.A. to be out with your people yet feel pangs of blue. 

Before the illustrations, there was a major co-sign from rapper Ice Cube. Lee began his career as a web designer working on commercial projects. In his free time, he logged onto social networks like Myspace to connect with indie musicians and ask if they’d like him to create cover art for a single or album. In 2014, Lee experimented with a “Hip Hop Heads” series to pay homage to famous rappers of our era through digital portraits. Eventually, his illustration of Ice Cube got the attention of the artist’s camp. The nod from the former N.W.A member encouraged Lee’s exploration with more music-centered work. Being online has been rewarding from the beginning.

Lee has since discovered that his joy is in capturing the lonely yet beautiful metropolis when the sun is growing, dancing, or retreating. Each new illustration he shares on Reddit or Instagram captures the attention of various art and design forums. Artists and fans alike love that he evokes fuzzy feelings or transports them to a softer world.

“I would say that I’m definitely a sensitive person – emotional, too,” Lee said. “I think that kind of makes me a nostalgic person. When I think back and certain images stay with me in my head.”

Over 5,000 miles away in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, music label Chillhop discovered Lee’s work online. The “lofi hip-hop and jazzy hip-hop” platform has carved a niche for itself in the online world of instrumentals and beat tapes. They’re best known for their “beats to study/relax to” livestream on YouTube, which lures in thousands of users looking for the aural equivalent to a weighted blanket. Now, with almost three million followers on their YouTube channel, Chillhop boasts a label with a global  footprint and a robust roster of young producers. The team is constantly searching for emerging visual artists like Lee to create digital album covers, posters, and vinyl for the music they release.

Chillhop’s art directors, Ben Niespodziany and Bastien Hebeisen, sift through Instagram, Behance, and YouTube regularly for illustrators, 3D artists, and animators. They will work with anyone, no matter the location. “I have all these different kinds of moodboards for potential artwork,” explained Niespodziany. “So, what I’m looking for depends on each project, but the artists that we find can be small-time in Brazil or someone from LA. It’s kind of crazy how it all works.”

From his Koreatown studio, Lee gains immense reach by using hashtags like #albumart, #chillwave, and #cyberpunk on his captions. With every upload to Reddit or Instagram, his art tends to spread organically amongst enthusiasts and peers alike. Chillhop’s Hebeisen came across his artwork featured on a YouTube video. “I saw that he was doing a lot of detailed illustrations and scenes that you don’t really need to know to feel the mood,” he explained. “I don’t think twice when I like a style.” Since Hebeisen sent the first email to Lee, the two have worked together on artwork for lo-fi producers No Spirit and Blue Wednesday. The online connection was a match made in dayglow heaven.

Though his work complements the mood of the chill hop scene, Lee’s imagination and expertise go beyond the genre for which he makes art nowadays. Someday, he’d love to work with rock artists. After all, those fizzy pink, cotton candy skies are beloved by everybody.

Nowadays there is a vast appreciation for artwork like Lee’s as it embodies a familiar lifestyle. His work suggests a desire to disengage slightly with the world. At our most vulnerable we are heavy-lidded with melancholia, peeling away from the duress of living whenever we can. We are free to be vulnerable when the sun sets or when we are home after hunching over our computers all day. Lee’s art is complementary to this yearning.

As we get farther away from any semblance of stability or paradise on Earth, we want to reimagine the moments when we felt lovely. The sunset is all we have as our city skyscrapers reach higher and our open spaces turn brown from drought. How fortunate we are for a visual reminder that every day does end, particularly the bad ones. We have something to look forward to when we upload the beautiful blushing sunset then get that solo walk around the block we’ve been dreaming about all day. But we also have Keebs to pin that down into something worthwhile.