There's an established, if corny description of the art of Gears of War: "destroyed beauty". I don't like typing it, I especially don't like hearing it. Beauty doesn't need to be defined like that because even the most smashed up thing in the universe can be beautiful if someone simply thinks it is.
Take the art of John Liberto, who worked on the first Gears of War and Unreal Tournament III. There's loads of things blown up, scarred and charred in his art, but it still looks pretty as a, well, picture.[jump]
In addition to Epic's big games, Liberto has also done some work on racer Split/Second and racer/shooter The Club. I've sprinkled a few of those pieces alongside the Epic works in the gallery above.
To see more of his amazing work, check out Liberto's site.
To see the larger pics in all their glory (or so you can save them as wallpaper), right-click on the "expand" icon on the main image above and select "open in new tab".
Fine Art is a celebration of the work of video game artists. If you're in the business and have some concept, environment or character art you'd like to share, drop us a line!
You can contact Luke Plunkett, the author of this post, at plunkett@kotaku.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.